multiple sclerosis
by calicoskies4ever
Summary: An AU story that takes place during and after the episode "Under My Skin," in which Wilson does House's medical tests, but things don't go exactly as either one expects. See inside for more information. Minor spoilers, OOC, slash, my other usual stuff.
1. Chapter 1

AN: So, I started to write this story after watching _Under My Skin, _when we were supposed to believe that House was just a drug addict and only needed to detox (which we later found out was wrong) and I wanted to go in a very different direction. After the season finale, I dropped it to start working on my story, _Just my Imagination_. I don't know. I think this probably doesn't work. Alternate Universe, House/ Wilson slash, a fair amount of OOC, and some references to child abuse. I'll probably be taking this down soon. Sorry it's so long and not very good.

When House told me he was hallucinating, I just automatically assumed it was because of the Vicodin. It didn't even occur to me that there might actually be something wrong with the guy, physically. At least nothing he hadn't caused himself. But, I would never say that to him straight off the bat. I knew I had to indulge him, or he wouldn't even consider the treatment he really needed—which was probably rehab at this point—let alone actually do it. He tried to kick me out of the sleep lab, but I lay down beside him, and wrapped my arm around his shoulder. He always slept better if I was close by, which was probably why he hadn't been doing so well after Kutner's death, as I hadn't been around much.

The next morning I listened to him rattle off the list of half a dozen things he thought might be wrong with him, each less likely and more ridiculous as the one before it. I tried to ask him about how many pills he was taking several times, but he was barely said two words to me until I was doing his spinal tap. I was pretty sure he'd had a nightmare in the lab, but he hadn't told me anything, wouldn't tell me anything.

"You think this is a waste of time. You think I'm being stupid about this whole—ow! When the Hell was the last time you did one of these? Probably think there's nothing really wrong with me, that I'm scared 'cuz I don't wanna stop taking my pills," he murmured. I considered telling him not talk while I was trying to stick a giant needle into his spine, but knew he wouldn't listen. Instead, I leaned down, pressing my lips to the top of his head. "That's a yes."

"No, it's not, it's a—okay, it was a yes. I think that the hallucinations are most likely being caused by you taking too many Vicodin. However, most likely does not mean always. So, there's always a chance that I might be wrong. If I am and you die because I didn't do these tests, I could lose my license."

"There wouldn't be time for that. You kill me, Cuddy kills you. Not that it matters. You're right," he admitted, letting out a small, sad sound as the needle went in. "I don't wanna talk about it." I finished the test.

"Now can I trust you to lie still, while I run this down to the lab and make sure they do this fast, or do I hafta tie you up," I asked, giving the guy a quick hug, and smiling at him to hopefully make the guy more comfortable. Greg squirmed a little, as if trying to get more comfortable.

"You'd like that, wouldn't you," he mocked, starting to sit up. Luckily, I was two inches away, and managed to grab his arm before he fell off the gurney. "Okay—I'm just a little bit dizzy. You didn't put my actual name on that vial did you?"

"I was gonna call you Ian Fleming but I thought somebody might figure out it was us and not do it. Is John Doe okay?" He rolled his eyes. "You want something else? I'm open to suggestions."

"Whatever." House was lying pretty much completely still, and staring at the wall, when I came back. In fact, he didn't even seem to notice me. "Shut up; shut up! I won't listen to anything you say. If I do, you're gonna make him hate me," he told to the wall.

"House," I said, gently, and he twisted his head, sighing. "Guess I should have knocked." His cheeks flushed bright red. "I don't hate you; I could never hate you. I don't care what's wrong, drugs, psychosis, MS, whatever. It doesn't matter. You're my best friend, you're my—I'm not sure what you wanna call what we are—but we're that too. Nothing is going to change how much I care about you." He nodded, unconvinced, and let me hold his hand, until he got a call. His team needed him. I went with and sat at his side with my hand on his knee, under the table. Foreman noticed my presence and started questioning us. Greg kicked me out of the DDX, and then rushed back to my side the second he got rid of them. Unfortunately, in the short time we had been apart, I'd gotten his test results. House told me what he intended to with the woman, but I only sort of heard him. I was focused on how I was going to break the news. I moved closer to him, placing my palm on the counter right next to his.

"How crazy is that," he asked, pathetically. I was hoping he'd take my hand in his, but either he didn't notice, didn't want anyone to see us holding hands, or didn't want it.

"It's on the upper end of your normal—state of…but still not too bad." He looked at me, almost shocked by the comment. "Look I know you're terrified that you're going to say or do something extreme… and that your team is just gonna go along with it because it's an order from you—their boss—but _that _is not gonna happen. Your team knows when to listen and when to find ways around your 'crazy' ideas." He shrugged, but still didn't say anything. "And we have to talk."

"Why," he asked, looking all around us—probably—to make sure that nobody was eavesdropping. I had no idea what to say to him. I couldn't figure out how to do what needed to be done.

"Let's go to my office." His eyes stared helplessly, like a child. "This isn't a lecture, but we do need some privacy," I explained, still at a loss for words. I had made a career out of telling people they were going to die. I'm so good that people say _thank you_, and yet, I couldn't give him some simple fucking test results.

"Aww, is 'little Jimmy' lonely," he mocked, leaning real close, and blowing in my ear. I closed my eyes, eyes rolling backwards, briefly but then managed to regain my composure. "You can say it's not a lecture, but we both know you're lying."

"I really think we should go to my office to talk or—we can go get some lunch first if you wanna—lock the door so we can make out and stuff, and you can do that thing with your, tongue." He rolled his eyes and looked away, disinterested. "I have no intent to tell you that you've done something wrong. I'm not trying to…you have a," I stammered as I tried to think of something to say to make him feel better, but didn't think there were very many things that would cheer him up, period. With this news, it seemed as there was no way to help. "Your suggestions, while unusual and abnormal, are helpful and you're almost always right. If it weren't for your 'crazy' ideas, ninety percent of the people who came to see you would die. Even your most outrageous ideas aren't bad. You're not—" House cut me off.

"Why are you trying so hard to make me feel better," he asked, furiously. "You got my results back, didn't you?" I tried and touch the side of his face with my hand but the guy pulled away. I was starting to think that maybe I couldn't do what I usually did because of our relationship. _Either that or I'm broken_, I thought.

"Yes, I just got the call from the lab." About midway through my statement, I couldn't help but notice that Greg was staring past me, as if at someone else. "What's she doing now," I asked, trying to steer towards my office.

"There are still other possibilities. I might not—you don't know it's because of the pills," he told me, trying to sound brave but looking just as terrified as he had in the sleep lab. I offered my hand again; I didn't know what else to do. "I don't need to hear the 'you're taking too many Vicodin' speech. Just leave me alone for a little while okay? I've got a lot to think about."

"You and I need to go someplace to talk. Right now," I said, quiet, yet firm. Greg grunted. He still didn't seem to be paying attention. "House this is—I need you to," I started to say, putting my hand on his arm, and patting it. I watched as a look of recognition spread across his face. He suddenly knew exactly what was I was trying to do. I had hoped it wouldn't happen like this. I wanted to make him feel safe. I wanted him to be comfortable. I wanted to do this in private so he wouldn't have a breakdown in the middle of the hallway. "Come with me."

"I was right," he gasped, still somewhat angry, but mostly sounding like he had been kicked in the testicles. And then he all but whimpered as he repeated the words. "I was…right." I grabbed his arm, dragging the poor guy into my office. "If…if I thank you, do I still have to pay you?"

"A deal's a deal," I teased, locking the door and then turning around, wrapping my arms around his midsection. "Besides, you're not…you might not," I was stuttering, which only seemed to make House more nervous. So, I stopped, counted to ten, and took a deep breath before starting over. "People can live with MS, for a long time. You're not dying yet. You can still be a doctor, and you don't have to stop taking the painkillers. You'll just," I started to say but he cut me off.

"I'm just gonna be weaker, and sicker, and I might go blind, or I could end up with pain all over that would make the pain in my leg seem like a paper cut, or…well, you know what could happen. You're a doctor too. Sort of." He sat down on the sofa, sighed loudly, put his head in his hands, but didn't actually cry or scream, or do anything.

"House, I didn't want you to find out like that. This is not how I do that. I guess I'm a little flustered." He let me sit down beside him, but didn't respond to anything I did or said. I tried squeezing his hand. I kissed his head. I hugged him. I said, "I love you." I even thought about breaking down, letting him see me cry, but decided that at least one of us needed to be strong, and he was freaking out. So, I stayed still and bit down on my lip, trying to think about something else. An image popped into my mind.

House, in his apartment, laying down on the sofa a box of Pop-Tarts in his hands, gazing up at me and smiling. 'Please have an answer to this question,' he'd said. 'What's for dinner?' I'd yelled about the dishes, but then he had hobbled in and slowly gotten down onto his knees, placing his hands around my waist, and pulled my pants down. Suddenly, I felt the modern him shaking my arm and I snapped back to reality. "Did you say something," I asked. "My mind was somewhere else."

"Mine too," he admitted. Greg let me hold him, and I pulled his body to my chest, but he didn't say anything else, and he still wouldn't—or couldn't—cry. _He's in denial, _I thought; _hasn't really hit him yet. _"I was thinking about the first time I got you drunk and tried to put the moves on you, but then you just passed out on the couch and drooled all over my shoulder." I patted him on the shoulder, but I still had no idea what to say_. _.

"Look, I want to apologize for how I just told you that. I'm usually beter at this. I just—you were sort of distracted, and we're freaking out. Usually do a little bit better of a job distancing myself from patients, and their families, but with you, I can't do it. I'm gonna lose you—not today and not tomorrow, but a lot sooner than I always dreamed—and that scares me more than anything else in the world."

"Jimmy, you don't need to think like that," he said, being uncharacteristically kind, even comforting. "I might not…it's like you said," he explained, lifting up his head and hugging me. He tried to hold me. He was tried to take care of me, like I was the one who'd just been given the bad news, instead of him. "I could have another five or ten or even fifteen years and there could be—advances," he said, but his voice was trembling. "With stem cell research and everything, they could find a cure before I start to show any really serious symptoms. Well, loads of time, before I start to exhibit any other serious symptoms. I could be…what's wrong, Jimmy?"

"I just told you that you have Multiple Sclerosis and you're…you're trying to make me feel beter. You're giving me a pep talk," I chuckled. I had never seen him like this. It was almost like we'd switched roles. He nodded, and shrugged. "Thank you."

"So what do we do now," he asked, even though we both already knew the answer to that question. Find a doctor, confirm the dignoisis with blood tests and an MRI, (which were going to become a regular part of his life now) start new meds, and schedule regular appointments with a neurologist. Not to mention finding a doctor he didn't hate and who would be nice but not too nice to him.

"I'll tell Cuddy that you need the rest of the afternoon off, okay? We're gonna go home, and start dealing with this. We're gonna take a couple of days, and I'm gonna find you the best doctor—for this, and," I said, and tried to kiss him, but House pushed away from me. "I kept telling myself that it was the Vicodin. It had to be the pills. I told you the same thing. I thought you were acting like a child, and I indulged you, because I knew you'd never go to rehab unless I could _prove _that it wasn't something else. If I had forced you to give up the pills, and ignored your medical needs, I could have killed you. Just like we were joking about, I made a joke about this and you actually have MS. God, I am so, so sorry."

"Don't be," he said, emotionlessly. "I _was_ being a baby. I didn't need all those tests. Even I thought it was the pills. I wanted to do all the other stuff 'cuz, I'm weak, and terrified of going through detox again. I pop twenty pills a day! How could _that_ not be the cause?" _Oh good, _I thought, as I started getting angry at him. _Yeah, sure blame yourself, that'll fix everything. _

"Maybe God hates you," I mocked. He smiled weakly, and pressed his face down against my shoulder, like he was about to go to sleep. "Would you like something stronger for your—for the pain?" He grunted, and sighed. "God I can't believe I said _that_." Once again, he gave no response. "We'll get you a good doctor, and you'll get started on the right meds real fast; so you can get rid of the hallucinations, and then you can come back here and," I stammered. "There's no reason to stop working. You might, eventually, have to use a wheelchair to get around but we _will_ figure this out. We can make this work," I promised, and then squeezed my eyes shut, clenching my teeth.

"Jimmy if you need to cry or something you should do it. I'm not gonna freak out," he told me, bravely. I managed an extremely small, pathetic smile, and I hugged him, and kissed his hair again. "Stop doing that. I'm not dying. I don't need you to infantilize me." There was a brief moment of silence. "I wouldn't be. I don't think I need stronger pain meds right now, but I wouldn't be. Maybe you aren't completely wrong. Maybe we _should_ go home. I feel like crap, and I don't want everyone to see me like this."

"You don't look any different to me, but I agree that you shouldn't be here, just in case you have some sort of emotional reaction. At all," I teased—hating myself the moment I said it—and patting him on the arm, pulling away as he stared blankly. "Sorry that was completely uncalled for. It was also rude, and cruel, and you really didn't deserve to be treated so badly."

"I know," he responded, sounding even emptier and more pathetic than when I first told him. I was about to apologize some more when he smiled, and winked at me. "I loved it. I don't want you to treat me differently, which is gonna be hard but—you're the only one who doesn't think I'm an obnoxious freak, and I like that, as pathetic as it might be." He kissed me, as I was thinking, _you're not pathetic. _"And I don't want this to change either. I like being—whatever we are."

"Let's go home," I whispered, slipping my arm under him, offering the physical support he needed to stand up. "Do you need help getting to my car?" Greg shook his head. "I'm sorry you're sick."

"Who wouldn't be?" _I'm sure you can think of someone, _I thought, as we made our way down the hall. Once again we ran into Foreman. "What's wrong with twinkle toes now," he sneered

"She's stable," he said, studying Greg and my faces, trying to figure out how to break one of us, get the truth. I thought I'd have to ask House—later—if he regretted having trained him so well.

"Then why are you bothering me," he asked, managing to make himself look as big and scary as usual. Foreman decided that I was an easier target, and he switched tactics. He made a sweet looking face, like he actually gave a crap about the guy.

"What's wrong with him," Eric asked me, and I could actually hear Greg's gulp. I thought about lying, but knew he wouldn't believe anything I said. I thought about telling him the truth, but that would torpedo any trust House may have had in me. I quickly realized that I needed to pick one of them, side with him, and stay there. So, I asked myself, who was I more afraid of? Which one should I lie to? Which one needed me more? It should have been obvious, but at the same time, I knew House sometimes liked to tell people shocking stuff to see their reactions, and I wasn't sure if this was one of those situations.

"You're gonna have to figure that one out on your own. He needs to leave now; we both do," I said, protectively, and the two of us continued on past Eric. I wanted to turn around and tell him to stay the hell away from Greg, but knew that he'd quickly figure out what I was doing and why. Then, he would never let us go. So we just kept walking, and I didn't look back. Naturally, his phone rang after we'd been in the car for about five minutes. "Don't answer it."

"What if the patient's dying?" He wasn't actually worried about that. The only reason he asked was because he knew I hadn't thought of it, and wanted to make sure that we didn't let something really bad happen.

"The patient is fine, and even if she's not; they can handle it. You hired Foreman and Taub and Hadley because they are—because they can deal with these sorts of cases. You, on the other hand, are sick and scared and won't be able to start coping with that emotionally, unless you're not surrounded by people who you hate." I stopped at a red light, and turned to look him in the eyes.

"Only one problem with that," the guy explained, in his usual voice. "I hate everybody." I studied his face, checking for his usual telltale signs of being completely freaked out or upset He seemed alright though. He let the phone ring, and managed to go six minutes before he dialed voicemail. Just as we were parking outside his apartment, the phone started up again, but with a different ring tone this time. "Who's that?"

"Cuddy," he said. _Crap, _I thought. "Think Foreman tattled to Mommy, or is she mad 'cuz of something else?" I had no idea, and told him as much. "What should I do?"

"Here," I offered, taking the phone out of his hand. "House can't come back in today. He's—." She cut me off mid sentence, which was probably a good thing, as I still have no idea what I would have said next.

"I know. I've seen his test results. Did you really think I wouldn't notice that you'd been secretly running tests on a non-existent patient all day? What is House trying to do? Is this another game for him? Maybe he found stronger drugs. That's why he's pretending to have Multiple Sclerosis, isn't it?" I could tell from the look on Greg's face that he heard most of what she was saying.

"Yeah, he just wants to get high. That's why I'm the one he went to. That's why he demanded that I shove a gigantic needle into his spine, when he could have just as easily said, 'Jimmy, I need more pills,' and I would of handed them over." She made a hurt noise, but I no longer cared about that woman. All the anger I'd felt upon hearing about Greg's illness was suddenly focused on her. "You're not calling because you think his drug use is a liability. You're calling because you know he's actually sick and you can't handle that. You want a shoulder to cry on? Well guess what, I'm taking care of the guy who was told that he's going to die, who just found out he could go blind, lose all use of his arms and legs, might start to have horrible, unmanageable pain, and who happens to be hallucinating at the moment! He needs me more than you do right now! He will always need me more than you do. Don't call back, okay?"

"Wilson," she said gently, almost lovingly. I stood by the door, pacing back and forth, furiously while House limped to the sofa, curled up in a ball, and squeezed his eyes closed, clamping his hands over his ears. "I just—I would really like to be ale to talk to somebody."

"You're going to have to find somebody else to hold your hand. I've got enough to deal with right now without you on my case—or his. Now, leave us alone, or I'll tell House he needs to stop working until we get his condition under control." Greg let me lay down on the sofa with him, and the two of us pressed up close together, his face buried in my shirt.

"In that case, will you tell House that I'm, that I—tell him I'm sorry, and that," she started to say, sobbing a little. _Stop talking to her, _my brain screamed at me. _Stop now, before she gets her hooks in._

"I'm hanging up now. Then, we're turning off his phone and taking the other one off the hook. If his patient gets worse his team can deal with it. If they can't…if things get really bad, then you may call _me. _And _maybe_ I'll let you talk to him over the phone. Otherwise, keep them away from him and you make _damn _sure that they don't find out what's really wrong until he's ready for people to know."

"It um—Foreman's the one who figured out he must be sick and that it must be bad if you took him home. So, I looked through all your paitent files for today. You've seen three people, two return visits, and one person with no medical history. I didn't tell him, but I'm sure they'll keep digging until they find something."

"We'll it's a good thing we're at his place. That way they won't be able to break in," I explained, and pressed my lips against Greg's forehead. "Goodbye," I told her, and hung up without waiting for a response. "You're okay," I whispered. "You never have to go back, not if you don't want to."

"As much as I complain about my job, I kind of like it. If you can get me on the drugs, they might—the hallucinations might stop and then I could, maybe work. Like you said, I might need an upgrade in cripple equipment, but I could. I can. Can I have my laptop, or some books, or something? I needa do some research."

"Not right now, Greg." He gave me a dirty, frustrated look. "You were lied to, and treated like crap, and kept in the dark your entire childhood, and as you grew up you decided that if you can just learn enough, study hard enough, if you got enough knowledge, then you just might be able make it stop hurting. Or—whatever, but it doesn't work like that. Right now, if you go online and start looking up medical articles about MS symptoms, and rare presentations, and go into chat rooms, and look up all the meds and stuff, it's gonna make you paranoid, and you're gonna feel more and more afraid, and—again, I'm sorry, but you know I'm right." He shrugged, reached for the TV remote. "Is there anything else I can get you?"

"A gun would be good, maybe if I shoot her, she'll go away for good," he said, and for a moment I almost thougt he could be serious. Then, I quickly realized that he didn't mean a single word. So I smiled, and decided to play along.

"Or the bullet could go through the non-existent person, and the wall—because these things are paper thin—and it could hit one of your neighbors, who might sue you, or call the cops, or God only knows what else. We'll make her go away; I promise. I will do whatever it takes to make you feel better," I swore, and gave him another small kiss on the forehead. "Does it bother you that I keep doing that?" He shrugged yet again. "Sorry, Buddy." Another shrug. Greg just closed his eyes again. "Do you want a beer or something?" He shook his head. "Anything in the whole wide world? You name it, and I'll find a way to get it."

"You don't actually mean that," he said, but it didn't seem like he was mocking me, mostly I think he was just scared of what I might do if he did think of something that I wouldn't give him. "Right now I'm okay with this. Might, maybe want something to eat later, but I'm still sort of…trying to figure everything out, which is really hard because you won't let me do any research."

"After we go to the doctor, you can look into this all you want. You can—I um, I just don't want you obsessing about this right now, and I know I can't stop it but I can control how much you obsess by keeping you focused on other things."

"What kind of things," he asked, his face suddenly regaining its usual color, a small, thin smile spreading across his lips. This time _I_ shrugged, but only to tease him a little. "Would you mind helping me out with a little—not so little—"problem?" I chuckled. "Is that a yes, or a no?"

"You really okay doing that, with "Amber" watching," I asked, and he lifted his head up a little, looking around. "She's still bothering you, right?" He nodded, lowering his face back into my shirt. "You wanna talk about it? Maybe that will help." House shook his head, tiredly staring at the TV set.

I managed to get him to eat a little something some time later, but he was really out of it, and didn't seem to want to do much of anything. That evening, I called everybody I had been friends with or had spoken to in medical school, trying to figure out who we should be taking him to. Then, I managed to get a hold of the guy's number, and somehow convinced his secretary to admit that there was, in fact, a free appointment the next day, which I got for Greg. Then, I sat back down at his side, and pulled his head into my lap, softly. "Hey, Big Guy; how you holding up?" House shrugged, silently. "That's not a very good answer. Makes me wonder if you're capable of dealing with this right now, makes me think you're not holding up at all."

"I'm hanging on, but just barely. If we talk, might lose my grip and fall off the cliff." Obviously I looked confused because he sort of smiled and patted me on the shoulder again, like he was gearing up to give me another pep talk. "I feel like I was born standing on the end of this cliff, a thousand feet over a raging river, full of jagged rocks, with crocodiles and sharks swimming around the water." I sighed, and rubbed his back a little.

"Does that—must have been tough to…I'm sorry. I don't know what to say right now, so I keep saying stupid things and it seems like I'm just making everything a whole lot worse."

"You're not," he swore, clutching me more tightly. "The ledge is actually pretty big. I got room to walk around, and lay down to sleep, or whatever but this—it sort of seems like someone or something ran up and kicked me, hard. I went flying and almost fell. Now, I'm just sort of hanging over the edge, my fingernails dug into the dirt to keep from slipping. I'm trying. I'm just. I dunno, that sounded stupid, didn't it?"

"Actually, if you ask me, I think that's one of your better metaphors. Mind if I steal it?" He shrugged. I lay still with him all night, trying to be kind and gentle and sweet, trying to figure out what he needed so I could give it to him. I just couldn't think of anything.

The next morning, I made him take a shower, helped the guy shave, and picked out clean clothes without any holes in or stains on or in them. I wore a tie, which of course he made fun of, but I knew that he was mostly him covering up for feeling nervous and terrified. "This doesn't change anything," I promised.

"You say that _now_, but if I go blind, can't use my hands and arms and end up wearing diapers, you'll shove me in a nursing home and never visit." He limped to towards the kitchen, opened the fridge and looked inside. I raced across the room, wrapped my arms around him from behind and held on tight. "I was being hyperbolic and sarcastic. Relax, I don't think you're gonna do it." I nodded, but didn't let go. "We have any of those French toast thingies that go in the toaster oven," he asked, rubbing against me a little.

"I dunno, but since they're frozen we might wanna look in the freezer," I taunted. He smiled, elbowed me a little, and pulled the door open. "There you go, French toast in five minutes. Although if you want, I can make the real stuff for you."

"We hafta leave in less than an hour," he reminded me. _I know, but I feel so bad for you that if you asked me to make you a seven course dinner, I'd probably do that. Hell, if you told me it would make you feel better, I'd probably score some weed, _I thought, but managed to keep to myself, mainly because I knew that as soon as he figured this out, he would take advantage of how much I cared.

"Boy, my team's getting to be really special," he said with a fake lisp, and an annoyed tone. "Thirteen has Huntington's, Kutner shot himself, and now this…not to mention what I did to—_her_." I still didn't know how to respond to this, and so I kept quiet while we were in the kitchen, while he ate, and during the first twenty minutes of the car ride to the new doctor's office. That's when I said something he'd consider stupid, but which I hoped—prayed—would help in some way.

"I want you to know that, no matter what happens, you're gonna be alright. I'll make sure of that. I promise. Everything is gonna be alright." He kept staring out the window, not listening to me, not even paying attention. "Come on, Greg."

"How am I supposed to believe that, when you don't even think it's the truth?" I took my eyes off the road just long enough to give him a small smile, and to let him see that I meant what I said. Greg fiddled with the radio station, and stared back out the window. "You're not gonna—are you…that is. I don't really know what I'm supposed to do right now, sorry Jimmy." I told him there was nothing to be sorry for, but of course he wouldn't (couldn't) listen.

House was unusually quiet and well behaved during the initial exam. Dr. Harold White asked a hundred different questions, some of them stupid, some of them useful, and yet he didn't make fun of the man once. I don't know if he was afraid I might get mad at him, or because he was sick, or for some other reason. The doctor ordered an MRI, did a full neurological workup—even asking House to squeeze his fingers, and a bunch of other different things. I stood beside the machine, with my hand on Greg's foot during the MRI—despite the technician's protests—giving him gentle touches from time to time, but between the headphones he had on, the sound of the machine, and the fact that the guy was lost in his own world, I don't think he noticed any of the stuff I was doing for him.

After that, we were given a couple different prescriptions, some steroids (House made a small Barry Bonds joke, which got way too big of a laugh from White and a small smile from me, an antacid in case the Solu-Medrol caused stomach problems, pain medication in case he started to have nerve related pain—technically the Vicodin would help with that, but they help on different levels and depending on the situation one might be better than the other—and Copaxone to help manage the other MS symptoms.

"Now, if anything else pops up, I want you to call right away," the doctor told me, because Greg had stopped speaking by this point. "I'm also going to want to see you again in three weeks, alright?" This question didn't seem to be directed at either one of us in particular. We both nodded; the doctor reached to shake our hands but House didn't seem capable at this point so I apologized and helped him into the waiting room. I set up his—our—next appointment, and we went out to the parking lot, and climbed into my car.

"If you don't like him," I said, buckling my seatbelt, and starting the air conditioner, but didn't pull out of the parking space or allow him to turn the radio on yet. "We can find somebody else, maybe someone who will be better suited to your personality."

"Do you really think I'm too big of a jerk to be able to get along with him," he asked, but I wasn't sure whether or not he actually thought I felt this way. So I answered carefully.

"I think that you have a serious neurological condition, and you're going to be seeing whatever doctor you chose, on a fairly regular basis for at least the next couple of years. I want the person you chose to be your long lost twin brother, who thinks, acts, and talks in exactly the right way. I want you to be comfortable around him, with him or her. I would hate it if you didn't like the person and felt like you had to start lying about how you're doing, or what's happening to you, just to avoid having to deal with someone you don't like." Greg got mad at me then, sort of. His face turned slightly pink, his eyes narrowed, and he looked up at me like I was the world's biggest moron. "If you wanna flex your sarcasm muscles, or whatever, I don't mind."

"I don't _need _to, and more importantly, when have you ever known me to not complain when I was tired, or sore, or in worse pain than usual, or feeling sick, or sneezing, or hungry, or—feeling like myself? I complain about everything and I tell you everything." He was both right and wrong here. It was true, House did complain a lot, and about big and small stuff, but he didn't tell me everything. Sometimes he hid things, because he was embarrassed, or he thought he could handle it on his own, or because he thought I wouldn't help him. There were other reasons, but only one of them is important. He also sometimes hid things from me because he didn't know how big of a deal it was/ didn't realize he had a problem. Like this hallucinating thing.

He confessed that 'Amber' had been following him around for nearly two weeks before he'd said a single word to me. When he told me, I asked the guy why he had held back for so long. He said something like, 'well at first I thought it was being caused by my sleep deprivation, and then I thought it was residual guilt over Kutner killing himself, and now this…I—um. I kept trying to bring it up and chickening out.'

"But that's just it," I reminded him, patting his left thigh, gently. "You _don't _tell me about every single thing that's bothering you. If you did, I'd agree to whatever you say. But this is really important, House. You need a doctor you don't hate, and who you can trust, and talk to. Otherwise you are going to fall back into the habit of not telling me, or anyone, when you have a problem. At first it'll just be the little things, but then one day…" he clamped his hand over my mouth. I kept talking. "You understand why I'm doing this don't you?" House nodded, and sighed, dropping his hand. "How about this, let's not make any decisions today? We'll fill these scripts, go home, give it a couple nights. If you're in any way uncomfortable with Dr. White, then we can—we will—find somebody else. If you think you can handle him, then we'll stick with him for a while. If things work out, we'll stick with him full time but I don't want you picking a neurologist because he's convenient." He nodded, leaning back in his chair. I said nothing for a while. "As soon as we pick up your new meds, we can gonna go home. Then, if you feel like it, you can cry, or scream at, kick, or bite me, throw stuff through the TV screen, or whatever you have to do to feel okay, but you can't just hold this inside forever and ever and pray that nothing goes wrong ever."

"I know! I just…I'm not _there_ yet. You might be all strong and amazingly good at coping, and maybe you can just cry an hour after you hear bad news but it takes me a while. I gotta—I dunno, do something. I'm not like you, okay? I'm not!" I patted him on the knee, gently and he flinched, trying not to jump out of his seat. "What did I do?" Once again his eyes looked away, out the window. "What? Did I, like, remind you of when you were a kid or something?" More rolling eyeballs. "Has she been touching you? Not—sexually, or to cause you pain, but you—sorry. If I had anything to do with it—" He cut me off again.

"I wouldn't even be sick. I know. You're one of the few people who doesn't hate me, and wishes I'd just die. But, I don't care about any of those morons. I think that's why I freaked out when you moved away. It was like you got me hooked on you being good to me, and then you were spending all your time with her, and then I screwed up and you left." He stopped, sighed, and took a moment to collect himself. "Anyway, I never actually thanked you for coming back." He hunched up his shoulders a little, head lowered, eyes staring down at the floor mats. "But I guess you owed me for making me go to the evil bastard's funeral."

"Yeah, well I guess that means we're technically even. Sort of. I mean, I've done you a million favors—and don't get me wrong, I know that you try and pay me back in your own way, which is all I can really ask," I cut myself off. "Don't make that face. Come on, I need you to talk to me if we're gonna make this work. I know. I was being an ass. Now you know how you make me feel." He flashed me a weak smile, acknowledging my stupid joke but not showing any interest in it. "Or not." I sighed, placing my hands back on the steering wheel, and watching as he fiddled with the radio preset buttons again.

"Light Jazz? You listen to _light jazz? _I knew you were a loser before, but this…what kind of a tone deaf freak listens to the light jazz station?" He enjoyed himself, taunting me, the rest of the way to the pharmacy and then sat as politely as possible while I was in the drive-through—save for the fart noises—while I got the rest of his new medications, and listened to the pharmacist drone on about the side effects of each one, and how he shouldn't mix this with that, and reminded us not to reuse the needles (that comment caused House to break out in a fit of childish giggles, but I managed to keep him under control for the most part) and a bunch of other stupid warnings that two doctors didn't need to hear. "Hey, idiot—and it's important you understand exactly why I call you idiot, but we'll get to that later—I'm a _doctor_," he finally had to say to the voice on the other side of the window. "I went to medical school. You may have heard of that place; you probably flunked out of it before getting this crappy job. Now the M.D. at the end of my name doesn't stand for most desirable, it means I actually _know _what Multiple Sclerosis is, what it does, and I understand how these meds work better than you do. And I definitely don't need someone who's IQ is probably less than my shoe size to remind me of the danger of dirty needles!" I paid for the meds, trying not to look too embarrassed, and we left. "How come you didn't yell at that guy? I'm not always gonna have the strength to do stuff for myself." He started smiling once again. I knew what was coming and was helpless to stop it. So, I decided to just sit back, relax, and enjoy his rant.

"I'll get you started," I said, playfully. "You know—just on the talking thing. I'm not gonna get you all wound up and horny in the car, not right now." He grunted. "So, speaking of not having the strength to take care of yourself…"

"Well, you know the human body is a fascinating thing. You got stuff coming out of virtually every hole, socket, and gap in it, especially during sleep. You snore, drool, sweat, occasionally ejaculate, or urinate, if you've got a cold there can be leakage pretty much all over from that. Not much you can do about the other stuff; especially if my bladder craps out, but…I'm not 12. Shouldn't need to get up in the middle of the night to change the sheets," he explained. I smiled, patting him on the arm, very gently. He didn't seem as bothered by it this time. We had already parked the car out in front of his building, and were once again sitting in the front seat talking to but not looking at each other. "So, I might look totally pathetic, but maybe we don't hafta stop having sex, and stuff. Unless one of us meets someone prettier, in which case all the rules go out the window." I wanted to say something like, _are you kidding, I've never been more in love with you, never wanted to be with you more, _but quickly realized just how stupid that was. House delighted in pointing out my mistakes, foibles, errors, and screw ups.

It was true, I loved him, and I loved taking care of him almost—if not just—as much. Greg, however, saw this as a form of weakness, and so you can understand why I didn't let him see how happy fawning over him was making me. The man absolutely loved to tell me that I only liked damaged, needy people that I only ever cared about being there for, supporting, and healing people. Only now, he had an incurable disease, and was going to get weaker and needier than ever. He would _never _stop needing me, or my care, or my love. His being sick was good for both of us. He got all the things he needed from me and I got to focus all my love and energy (which was more than enough to strangle most people) on him, and as a result, would never get bored of, find someone who needed me more than, or cheat on him.

"That's never going to happen again," I swore, but of course he still didn't believe me. "You're exactly what I've always wanted, needed, somebody I can't cure, and someone who will never bore me. I helped him inside, and the two of us sat on the couch while I took out his meds and started getting them ready for his next dose.

"What's gonna happen to me now," he asked, as I gave him a glass of water to take the pills with, and started to prepare the Copaxone. He took the pills, watching me and rubbing his eyes tiredly. "I dunno if I want that one. I don't like injections."

"You need this one more than the others. I'll do it, okay? I have a real soft touch," I promise. "As for the other thing, I don't know," I confessed, even though I didn't think it was the best answer. He needed to be comforted, he needed to be held, and told that everything was going to be all right. Only, if I told him the lie, he'd stop trusting and listening to me. He needed a lie, but wanted the truth. So, I gave him what he wanted. "If you take your meds the way you're supposed to, the chances of a major episode—okay, you already know that, and don't care. How about this? There's no way to know exactly what effect your disease will have on your body. I know, I'm sorry; I wish there was more I can do." Greg nodded, laying his head on my shoulder. "Something wrong?"

"Itchy," he explained, but whether he was exhausted or just emotionally incapable of handling the situation any longer. He didn't' usually give out one word responses, regardless of the situation. He loved to tell people when he knew something; he loved to show off. It made him feel big and strong, in a world where he was completely powerless. _Poor guy,_ I thought, kissing his hair. "And tired." I nodded, rolling his sleeve up a little to give him the shot.

"Now it's important you take these pills exactly when you're supposed to, exactly as they're supposed to be taken. You have to be really careful with this stuff. And now that you've gotta take all these other pills, you need to be more careful with the Vicodin too. You don't have to stop, just don't over do it."

"It's just gonna be tough, 'cuz I'm probably gonna be even moodier now—not because of the disease or the drugs, but just me being me dealing with…this. I dunno. Maybe I shouldn't even bother," he confessed, and I knew instantly that he'd been thinking about _that_ for a while. I should have realized it sooner, but I hadn't. The more I thought about it, the more surprised I was that it hadn't come up earlier.

"I thought I was done worrying about you doing that for a while," I confessed. I hated to say it that way. If it were up to me, I'd never be cold or sarcastic with him when that guy got all sad and pathetic. In his normal mood it was no big deal, he was a little sad all the time but he didn't look like a stiff breeze would knock him over. Unfortunately, House responded to my treating him nicely the way most people would have reacted to my taking a dump on their dining room table. I had never thought of him as the suicidal type, but then again I didn't think Kutner had been the type either. Plus House had only been this sick once before. Although, back then he'd risked his life to keep from losing his leg. I guess that could loosely be defined as a suicide attempt.

"What, you think I'm gonna off myself because I'm sick? 'Cuz I think that it sucks to not be the picture of health as usual? Or something…I have no idea how your mind works," he mocked. "I know what I said, but I didn't mean—that I actually wanted to give up. Well, maybe I sort of did suggest it but I didn't exactly think… Maybe I didn't want you to try and talk me out of it because I have no real interest in doing…_that_. Just wanted to see what you'd say if I thought I—well, it doesn't really matter what I want, does it," he murmured, sort of quietly and a bit sad.

"Sorry, I'm just overly cautious lately, after everything we've been through. Ask me again and I promise I'll say the right thing," I offered, already aware that I had messed up royally. Greg didn't dole out second chances very often; if someone hurt or crossed him, and I mean really _hurt _him, or like I had, that was usually the end of his relationship with them. Stacy was lucky to last as long as she had, although I could hardly see her dumping a guy just a few hours after having mutilated her boyfriend, and he couldn't run away from her either. But me…I didn't wanna think about that. "Look, if you _ever _want or need to give up—or uh, or even you just feel like you can't do this; you tell me and I will take care of it." He rolled his eyes, rubbing his arm absently. "Does that hurt?"

"Just where I had the IV," he explained, referring to the contrast MRI from this afternoon. "This shouldn't be happening to me," he said, a good twenty minutes later. _You're right, it's not fair, but then again what is? _"I've been shot, beaten up, the infarction—stuff like this shouldn't keep happening. It's too much for one person. I don't think the human body is designed to take this many hits. I already lost the use of most of my right leg. How could _I _get MS? It'd be one thing I made myself sick. Then, I'd understand, but…I—it's so random, so stupid, so…unfair." He let out a deep but soft sob.

"It's not fair. I'm sorry, House. You're right; this sucks. You might have to go through all of the most painful, severe symptoms and the meds you're gonna have to take can cause all kinds of nasty side effects which (with your luck) you just might experience, but we don't have too many options right now."

"Yeah, sure, whatever," he moaned, no longer interested in my attempts to cheer him up. "Can I have those macadamia nut pancakes for dinner?" He sounded like he'd just asked for a six figure loan. The last time I saw him like this, he was in excruciating pain and on the verge of a breakdown because Stacy had just left him, again. I hoped we wouldn't have to go that far again, but I didn't care. I'd seen him through the worst times of his adult life, pretty much, and I'd see him through this too. "I missed one."

"One what," I asked, and for the first time that evening I really didn't know what was happening to him, had no idea what he meant, why he'd just said that or what to do for him.

"One more thing that happened to my body that was so—that sucked really bad," he finally managed to tell me. I sighed, and patted him on the arm. I knew every horrific, disgusting, evil thing that House's "father" had done to him, and couldn't believe I'd forgotten about them, even momentarily. "When, _he _you know…but I don't wanna discuss that right now. I just thought—if I'm gonna list all the crap I had to go through, I might as well list _all _the crap I've had to go through."

"Is there anything I can say or do that will make you feel better," I added, kissing his hair one more time. Greg shook his head, sniffing a little. "That bad, huh? You know, I'm not going to leave or get mad or yell or hit you or worse, if you cry. This is a big deal. It's really bad and I think you've been hoping that if you don't deal with it, you might not ever have to. I'm sorry, but that's just not going to happen." He looked extremely angry. "I know, you were wishing that after your leg that you'd never have to come to terms with this sort of thing again, that you weren't going to develop another horrible illness, but you have, and you do, so—sorry. I'm getting carried away here. It's just that I don't think I have seen you cry. Not once in the last 20 years, and doing that would be a huge step forward. It's like…it's—I dunno. I suck at metaphors," I admitted. "I thought it would help you start to come to terms with this, but maybe I'm—okay," I whispered, rubbing his back as the guy started to make louder and more pathetic sounds. Soon, I felt the wet warmth running down my neck, as he started crying. _Attaboy, _I thought, _you're gonna be just fine. I'll make sure of it._ _I'd do anything for you, Greg._

Some time later, he came back around, looked up at me with red-rimmed and tired eyes, and said, "You didn't even start on the pancakes yet?" I smiled a little, and shrugged. _This was more important. _"I gotta take a wiz, I better smell you cooking my dinner by the time I'm finished or else I'm not gonna talk to you about anything ever again," he threatened. I nodded, helped him up and then headed to the kitchen myself. 


	2. Chapter 2

AN: so there are several different types of Multiple Sclerosis, but it's actually all sort of complicated, and while I'm doing my best research-wise, I don't know everything yet and can't get more specific right now. Also, preemptive warning, the next chapter is going to be a little sad, and this one is sort of disturbing at some parts but no more terrible than any of my other pieces.

Once he got started on the new meds, the hallucinations went away almost immediately. This seemed to make Greg more—well, not happy, but certainly less sad—than anything I had tried to do or say in my attempts to comfort and or make him feel better physically. Within a week, he was—with the exception of the bruises from the Copaxone injections and the stomach ache from the steroids—pretty much exactly the same as he had been before he started 'seeing' Amber. He was even bored enough (or comfortable enough) to pull junior high level pranks on me. They tended to be little things, him coming into the bathroom while I was in the shower and flushing the toilet and shaking up cans of beer or soda and tricking me into opening them. Actually, he was pretty good at the shaken up can thing. One time, he just put them both on the table and let me pick first. Then, before I could get my soda open, he started to pull and yank on the tab from his drink, grunting, and even cursing. He stopped, cracked his knuckles, and tried again.

"Stupid, no good fingers," he muttered to himself, growing more and more frustrated with each passing moment. "What's the point of living if you can't even use your fingers?"

"Here," I'd offered, reaching for the soda. "Let me get that. The tab is probably warped. This is a one time only deal and if it isn't we can get you a service dog. He'll be able to open your soda cans just as well as if you were doing it yourself," I teased. He snickered, as suds erupted all over me.

"First of all, I only drool half as much as most dogs, and second…okay, I don't have a second but that was the funniest thing I ever saw. How is it you keep trusting me? If I were you, I'd make me go first and if the can I picked didn't explode I'd still make me open the other one too."

"Well, I already tried something almost exactly like that. Two days ago, your can exploded and so did mine, which means that you're not afraid of getting soda or beer all over yourself. I think you're more entertained by the explosions than the tricking me part. We both know that compared to you, I'm basically retarded, don't have to keep proving it with soda cans." Another smirk, followed by him giving me a playful shove. "So, are we ready to go back to work next week, or should we take some time off, drive up to the shore, go to the beach and use people on inner tubes and floating chairs and stuff as targets for lawn darts?" He didn't laugh or look at me like I was an idiot. If he weren't staring with his mouth hanging open, I'd have worried he hadn't heard me.

We were sitting on the sofa—me in my Dr. Pepper soaked t-shirt, him in pajama bottoms, and a ratty, ancient looking lacrosse jersey, looking exhausted. "What about—" I started but couldn't think up another activity.

"Between Foreman and Cuddy, I doubt there's a person in the hospital who doesn't know I'm sick," he murmured, rubbing his shoulder. Being sick was one thing. It was bad—terrible—but he could deal with it. Losing total control over his body would (again) be difficult but Greg had always been strong, and there was no reason to think he wouldn't make it through this. What bothered him most was (it seemed) was the complete and utter lack of privacy. He would have been mad when his team eventually figured out what was wrong with him, even if it came as soon as a month after his diagnosis. Unfortunately, he didn't have the time or the luxury. Everyone found out before he'd had the chance to come to terms with his illness. The whole truth of his situation was still sinking in. He didn't like it when people, especially people like Cameron, stuck their noses in his business.

"Yeah, but they probably also think you don't know that they—know. Which means a couple of things? Number one, you can mess with them and two they are probably going to keep their mouths shut and leave you alone because they think that's what you want. Okay, Buddy?" He shrugged, still massaging his arm absently. "Does your shoulder hurt? Okay, stupid question on my part, you were injected in the arm ten minutes ago…let me rephrase."

"If I tell you it's not too bad, will you be quiet." I zipped my lips. "You are such a geek. It's a miracle you get any. Ever." I decided not to mention the fact that he hadn't answered my question yet. He was still thinking about whether or not he was ready to go back to work. I lay down, pulling him with me, slowly so he could make me let go if he wanted or needed that. "Mind taking your shit off? I don't wanna get my hair all sticky and gross."

"Oh my God, I am so sorry. I should have been way more careful because god forbid you take a shower," I mocked, pressing his face into the wet, sticky mess, with one hand. "Okay," I came up with fairly quickly. "I'll take my shirt off, if you admit that the real reason you want me to so is because you love seeing my naked body." Greg rolled his eyes but didn't deny it. "We haven't really tried to make out, or mess around, or have sex since you told e about the hallucinations, actually it's been even longer than that." House put his hand on his cheek and tilted his head to the side, as if deep in thought, and then smiled, wrapped his legs around my hips, rocking back and forth, slowly. "It'll take that as a yes on the sex thing."

"I'm a guy. Of cause I wanna have sex. Someone could remove one of my kidneys, right here in this apartment, stick me in a tub of ice, and tape a phone to my hand, and as long as whoever found me in the tub full of ice was hot, I'd ignore the agonizing pain, crawl out, of the bath, and do it on the floor with them while we waited for the ambulance." I laughed at him, hysterically.

"I'm sorry, Greg. I didn't mean to—but…" I had to stop again, from the giggles. "Even if the ice didn't make it impossible for you to get it up, _you _can not ignore pain. You're great at coping with it, like right now. But if someone removed your kidney in this apartment and you didn't die from septic shock, well..."

"Okay, I'd be curled up on the floor, in the fetal position, screaming." I nodded, leaning my head up to kiss him on the mouth. "We haven't talked about the pain thing before and I don't exactly know why." _Yes, you do, _I thought. "Can we at least wait until I don't have an erection to finish this conversation," he asked, his eyebrows leaping up like two, very hairy ballerinas.

"Well, normally, I'd make you talk about any situation when I think I have the best chance at getting you to listen, but I'm currently in the same predicament you are. So, let's deal with the—most immediate problem first." He nodded, and went to work on getting my pants undone, yanking them down, passed my hips, leaving them in a ball around my ankles... Finally, he removed his own shirt, and squirmed out of his pajama bottoms. Then, the wrapped his hand around my cock, running his thumb over the shaft, with the exact right amount of force. He was sitting far enough forward that my hands could reach up and give his ass a gentle squeeze if I wanted to. "Greg, if you are okay with it, I'm gonna go ahead and get you ready. Is that…is it alright? Don't roll your eyes at me. You are not alright with me touching you, or with anybody touching you for that matter. And while I can see your face, _you _are hard—er difficult—to read." He said it was okay. I grabbed the tube of lubricant from a drawer in a table beside the couch, squeezed some of it on my hands, lubed up a couple of fingers, and gently slid them inside of him, one at a time, carefully, slowly. Greg lowered himself onto my cock and we both rocked our hips, me maneuvering up and forwards and him back and forth, and up and down. His hands moved around on my chest, clutching on to me by the shoulders, with his palms on my—non existent—pecks, then fingers wrapped around my stomach, and then back to the shoulders again. I held on to the sofa with one hand but used the other one to rub, and squeeze, and tug on his cock.

"You know, that nurse might not appreciate your baby fat, but I sort of think it's a good thing. Easier to hold on," he explained. Then, he got that devious little look in his eyes. "Easier to do this too." His fingers loosened their grip. They then started to dig into the sensitive nerves in my stomach, sending even more waves of pleasure through me. I could feel myself getting closer, as I reached up to kiss him some more. "Jimmy, I think I'm gonna explode," he told me with a goofy fake lisp.

"Good, me too," I whispered, and with one final thrust, came inside of him. After he finished, Greg collapsed on top of me, tiredly, our pants still bunched up around our ankles. "When was the last time you slept," I asked. He shrugged, but it was obvious (even if I wasn't noticing at night) that he'd been tossing and turning pretty much every night for the last few weeks. "Go on, sleep. It's okay," I promised, sweetly pulling his PJs up. He didn't say anything, but when our eyes met I could see how grateful he was not to be left helpless and vulnerable. As unfortunate as it was Greg was still the same, poor, sad, terrified little boy, and that made him uncomfortable and sensitive sometimes, especially after love making. I had been lucky—and loving—enough to have never tried to put the moves on him when he was in one of these moods but I did noticed that after sex, he was much more like to have—I called them flashbacks for convince, but that wasn't what they were—an incident, while House swore up and down that while they were connected, I hadn't caused it.

"You're not hurting me," he'd insisted several times. "I'm just comfortable enough around you to freak out and I know you'll make me safe. And I know how unlike me that sounds, but it's just, how I get on occasion."

"Do you want me to get your shirt," I asked, already back to the present. "I can help you put it on. Or—" I paused, looked down and noticed that he was already sleeping. I did it anyway, but I think that had more to do with me freaking out over looking at the bruises on his arms from the daily injections They were intramuscular, so at least he wouldn't have track marks, or scarred veins, but it still looked bad.

He slept for several hours, woke up, watched General Hospital, and picked at his dinner. I put him to bed latter that night but stayed up watching him breathe shallowly, for a while, and tried to calculate how long we could live on our savings, and if that were long enough for me to fix some of his emotional problems a little, possibly even cure them completely. If he'd let me do that. If he was willing to work for it. We both slept poorly that night.

I kept on having these nightmares where he woke up, unable to move, or speak, or breathe, or anything. I had no idea what he needed or how to give it to him. He was helpless. I was helpless. And all the people around us refused to let me take him home. All I could do was sit next to his bed, watching him fade away with tubes coming out from all over him. And he had this look in his eyes… He kept staring up at me, begging to be let free, begging me to stop the pain. His eyes were sobbing, screaming, why won't you help me? Then, I'd wake up, watch him shift restlessly, relax, count sheep, drift off, and start all over again.

Nothing hugely important happened over the next few days. I got him to have a conversation—albeit an extremely short one—about the probably he sometimes had with being touched. I understood how he had gotten there, what John House had done to his tiny child, but because one night, many, many years earlier—after he had a little too much to drink and didn't really know what he was saying—I had all but forced it out of him. But knowing had its ups and downs. I hardly ever hurt him (and it was always on accident when I did hurt the poor guy) and it meant that this discussion was only about a third as long as it would have it been had I not known what I knew, and I knew the who what, where, when, and how of the abuse. Unfortunately, neither of us knew _why _his [fake] father had done those things, which drove Greg up the wall, but he figured it was random, because that was slightly less horrible than the only other explanation he could think of.

"It was either random, or I deserved it," he told me that day after my night of bad dreaming.

"So is it specific things that set you off, or do you just have trouble with being touched by anybody in general?" House had been playing a video game, but he paused it when he said he wanted to talk. Instead of answering this question he turned the game back on, and started to play again. "You brought it up. Why do that unless you actually wanna talk bout it?"

"I almost want it to be specific stuff. And it's not you. It's me. Get confused sometimes, so I dunno. Kinda hard to explain. I only brought it up so you'd stop bugging me; make you stop thinking you hurt me or whatever." I nodded, and let him play his game some more.

"Can you think of a reason you wouldn't be able to go back to work on Monday, I asked sometime later, mostly because asking if he _wanted _to go back would have resulted in his laughing his ass off.

"I can't think of a reason I wouldn't of been able to work last week," he responded, smirking. _Cute, _I thought, and rubbed his left leg, gently. "But as long as I don't have an episode or something, I should be fine—physically. I just look kinda puffy from the steroids, which wouldn't be so ad except they're also killing my appetite, so I've actually lost weight and yet I don't look like it. But, other than that, don't seem to be doing too bad." Greg paused is video game again, pushed my head down into the cushions and lay down on top of me. "My turn to be on top," he exclaimed, kissing all over my neck, and finding all the right spots, as always.

"Well, technically," I said, between kisses. "You were on 'top' of me the last time—even if—okay, okay—forget I said anything—and I thought we agreed no more tickling during sex. I can't breathe that way." He shrugged, and pushed my shirt up over my head.

"Sorry, I forgot. You see, I've had a lot on my mind the last few weeks," he sulked, making a sad, pathetic, pouty face. "Why are you wearing jeans? It's not like we're gonna be leaving the apartment." His fingers continued to fumble with my fly. "Stupid piece of shit. What'd you do, put superglue on the zipper?" I sat up, quickly and started to examine his fingers, turning his hands over in my own.

"Are you messing with my head, or are you actually having trouble making your fingers perform every day actions?" He groaned. "I don't want to stop, but if you're having a physical problem, then we have to deal with that first. Now—and I need the truth on this one—are you having pain in your fingers too?"

"No, but I am having pain in my neck all of the sudden. Think that might be connected to the MS," he grunted. I let him know that I wasn't going to drop this. "They don't hurt, just sort of get stiff sometimes, and sort of numb…what—where are you going?"

"I'm calling Dr. White. Don't make that face; this could be serious, and if it is, the sooner we deal with it, the better your chances of regaining your normal hand function will be."

"It's not serious. Happens sometimes. It started happening before I got sick. Started happening when I was—I dunno how hold. Long time ago. Only in my left hand. The right one is fine, but…he used to grab me. By the hand, or the wrist, or elbow. Between the time I was five and the day I moved out, never went more than…nine months without getting a cast or a splint put on some part of my body. Most of the time, it was more like five months. I got really good, though. I figured out how to twist—I didn't try to run away because running only made him madder—so he'd grab my left arm or hand because I couldn't write or feed myself or do much of anything with that one. Not that it mattered. Up until 10th grade, school was just useless. Every time we moved it took about a month—sometimes less—for the teacher to figure out just how smart I was. They'd tell my parents I should be in a higher class level, but dad always said, "he's an immature little shit, and yeah he's a tiny bit clever, but Greg's only a quarter as smart as you think he is. In two weeks, he'll be begging to get back into this class.""

"House, I—" I started to say how sorry I was, and explain that he was the smartest person I had ever met, but he cut me off.

"I know you're sorry. You couldn't be a human being and not feel sorry for me after a story like that, but I didn't say that stuff to get your sympathy. My point was that my hand is crap and the...whatever happens to it from time to time has nothing to do with the MS." I nodded, and got back on the sofa with him, but Greg was already stiff, but not in the way he waned. "Can we maybe finish this some other time? Not really in the mood anymore." He was on the other end of the sofa in no time flat, but didn't pick up the game controller.

"What happened in tenth grade," I asked, gently reaching for his hand. He let me take it, but seemed extraordinarily uncomfortable. "Do you want me to let you take a few too many Vicodin and let you go wherever you go when you disappear into your head?" House looked me in the eyes for the first time since he'd started explaining about his 'arthritic' fingers. "Yeah, it's alright. You clearly need a break, and you didn't tell me about your dad to get my sympathy, but you also didn't do it to explain why you couldn't get my pants off. You needed to stop and couldn't think of a good excuse."

"Even though I'm not in—even though I don't wanna do _it, _I wouldn't completely hate it if you did that thing, you know…where I lay down and you lay down in the same place and you hug me, and stuff," he asked, cautiously, as if afraid of my reaction.

"Why Gregory House, did you just ask me to _hold _you?" The poor guy squirmed, and looked away. "Don't worry, I won't tell anybody. Besides, who the Hell would believe me?" He shrugged, and sank into my arms, pulling a prescription bottle from the pocket of his pajama bottoms, popped the lid off, and tossed back a few. "I love that you let me do stuff like this by the way. I love how you're sweet around me, occasionally, how you let me in—how you tell me everything. You lie to me all the time, but I also think you're also honest with me way more often than with anybody else." He didn't respond, but I could see how focused and clear his eyes were, which meant he wasn't gone yet. "Except maybe your mother." He snorted. I ran my and through his hair.

"I lie to my mom. She knows—she's better at figuring out what's true and what isn't than you." His head lolled to the side, tiredly. "Better than me too." It seemed like that was going to be it, but then he opened his eyes again, looked right up at me, smiled, and said, "I love you too, Jimmy," before drifting off into his own little world. I sat there all day, softly rubbing his back, and talking to (at) him quietly, even though it had never seemed to help before, and didn't seem to help now. We fell asleep like that, or rather, he fell asleep and I failed to stay awake watching him. When I awoke the next morning, House was awake and sitting up with a pillow under his leg and his feet in my lap, eating cereal and watching cartoons.

"I thought we were supposed to be having French toast for breakfast," I said, yawning. He shrugged. "Still want it?" Another shrug. "Did you have that dream again last night? The one with—" He flinched so hard I cut myself off. "That's a yes. So, am I in for another day of silence, or are you alright with this stuff," I asked, sitting up and starting to rub his toes.

"I dunno, what are you gonna give me if I start acting like me again?" I smiled, tickling him just a little, hoping for a smile or a tiny giggle.

"Good to have you back," I exclaimed, letting go of his toes. "Now, be honest with me, are you hungry or is cereal enough for you?' Greg put the bowl down and belched.

"Did you seriously mean the thing you just said? You actually like spending time with me? Me? The real me, the guy who annoys you more than anybody else, the guy who—well, you know who I am, right? Do you actually like it when I act like…myself?"

"I fell in love with _you_, Greg. You get me. You make me feel good, funny. You're the only person who's ever really cared about me, outside of my parents. I can be myself around you. I can't do that with anybody else." I rubbed his feet a little, and watched him carefully. House smiled, a big, big smile.

"You have a serious problem, and need help, but God save me, I'm not gonna give it to you," the guy said. I clapped him on the back. "You only like me because you're messed up. If you got better…I don't think I'd do so good if you hated me, like last summer." I started to apologize again, but Greg stopped me again. "I don't wanna talk about _that_. Only brought it up as an example. That and you never really went way before last summer. Think I even called you on your honeymoon once," he said, with a small chuckle. I let go of his feet, and reached for his shoulders, pulling his body into my arms. I loved holding him, and he hardly ever let me do it before. Now that he was sick he was either relaxed enough to let me do it more, or he didn't care because he was so stressed out from being sick.

"Twice," I mocked. "Okay, technically once and the second time I was calling you back. But Bonnie walked into the room, and I had to hang up, pretend you were a kid pranking—no wait, well that's what I said. You called; it was the middle of the night. She would of killed me if she knew what I was doing, so I waiting until she went back to sleep, went into the bathroom, and called you back on my cell phone. "That was the fifth day of our trip and we were leaving the next night, but I was already starting to get annoyed by some of her...eccentricities," I explained. House found this hilarious.

"I told you not to, Silly boy. I said, 'don't marry that psycho; she'll rip your heart out of your chest and eat it. Raw."

"Didn't you say the same thing about Hannah, Claire, and Amber, and Julie? Come to think of it, you say something like that whenever you meet somebody I'm dating. Or don't meet them." He thought carefully for a minute or two. "You need to take these steroids and antacids right now. They work better if you have food in your stomach." I got the pills, gave them to him, but it turned into a bit of a struggle. He didn't seem to want t take them but I knew he needed to. "Do I hafta pinch your nostrils shut and force the pills down your throat?" His hand reached for the pills so quickly that I felt bad, knowing I had probably—on accident—hit one of his many sensitive spots. "Now, back to the real issue. We were talking bout how you always bad mouth my girlfriends."

"Because they were bad for you. Every single one of those girls broke you heart, just because they could. Except for Amber. They just kept taking and taking from you and you are so nice so you kept giving and giving and giving. Then, when they finally did dump you, you were so—I'm usually right. Actually, if it weren't for Amber, I'd be able to say I am always right."

"What makes you think you were wrong about her?" I was interested to see what he said, because the more I'd thought about her the more I wondered how long the Amber and I would have lasted. We hadn't been going out that long. She might have been the one who finally finished me of. That was almost exactly how House had said it when I began dating her. I wondered if he'd changed his mind from something he'd actually seen or because he still felt guilt over her death, which meant we had even more problems than I'd realized.

"She wasn't gonna suck you dry. CT—she was nice to you, and didn't let you do the thing where you do whatever the other person wants, even if you don't like it. Remember the mattress fiasco?" I smiled a little, but I understood that he wouldn't be saying those things if she were alive a thought which sent a small twinge of pain through my heart. "If you ever wanna talk about her, I'm not the worst listener in the world. Oh and by the way, I think it's hilarious that you always wanted a water bed and when you finally got one, you couldn't sleep in the thing 'cuz it made you seasick."

"Do you really mean that," I asked, already anticipating—know exactly—what his answer might be. He didn't want to talk about Amber, he didn't even like her but he knew that I had loved the woman, and he knew that I still missed her and was trying really hard to be a good friend, for whatever reason.

"God no," he replied, smiling. "That's okay for me to say, isn't it?" I kissed his hair, softly. "I just wanted to say—people say stuff like that, right?" I reassured him that he had in fact said the correct thing. A minute passed, five, fifteen, fifty, almost an hour and a half of the two of us laying there together but not talking. Then he worked up the nerve to discuss something he'd needed to talk about ever since he'd gotten his diagnosis, but had been unable to. "I don't know if I want this; I mean, I don't know—okay this is actually a lot more difficult to talk about than I was expecting it to be. I can't think of a way to say what I want to tell you without sounding like a total wimp."

I knew to a certain degree what he wanted to say; because it was what most people who had been given this sort of news would be thinking about. Not everyone would seriously consider it, but Greg was already in so much pain. It was one of several very necessary conversations that someone with an illness of that magnitude needed to have with their loves ones. And I was his only loved one.

"You're worried that having a disease like yours—being sick like you are—is going to change everything, right? You're afraid that nothing between us will ever be the same. But it's not going to be like that."

"It does change everything," he said, quickly covering up for desperately needing to have this conversation by pretending he had already come to terms with having Multiple Sclerosis, when he hadn't.

"House, it's okay. It's just me and you here; we're just talking. Now I know how hard it is for you to talk about this stuff. If you want me to—I can describe what I think you're feeling, and after I'm done, you can tell me how far off I am." First he shrugged, but then lowered his eyes, staring at his big toe, and then he did—eventually—nod. "Despite what happened to your leg, you don't see yourself as an unhealthy person. You were functioning, almost normal. Now, you actually are sick, and it's not the kind we can really fix. Not yet… I get it, Buddy. That's the worst part about being a sick doctor. You know exactly what can happen to you. But we're going to be okay," I promised. You've got the best specialist in this part of the country and you've got me—a fantastic doctor who loves you like crazy—to take care of you, help you, love you. Alright, I'm done. You can go ahead and pick apart everything I just said." Greg had started playing his game again, but turned it off completely. He looked right at me, and then sort of shrugged. I kissed his hand squeezing it gently.

"Say the last part again," he pretty much begged. I wrapped my arms around his waist but he pushed them off. "Never-mind. I'm going on my laptop to do some more research." I sighed, but didn't try to stop him right away.

"You've got me. I'm here. I'll always stay, take care of you, listen to you, get drunk with you, hold you, kiss you, screw your brains out—if you want—and I will love you, always and forever.: House and I had been spending the majority of our time either curled up on the sofa together and doing other things in that same room. He was keeping his computer on a little desk next to the couch, so he could go back to looking up articles in medical journals and on medical websites on MS, and visiting personal sights, reading everything he could get his hands on regardless of how helpful it might have been. When he typed multiple sclerosis into the search engine over 10,000 pages came up. He was on the 1200 site, but had only read about half of them. A few he'd looked at, realized they were useless and moved past. If he were anybody else I would have taken the computer away from them a long time ago, but with him it was almost normal.

House obsessed. That was how I had seen him cope with everything else he'd ever gone through. Although, I was starting to worry about him. He still refused to actually discuss his condition, either specifically or in generalities.

He sat on the sofa, curled both us feet under himself, left hand reaching up, index finger wrapping around his nose, and his right hand operating the mouse, as he scrolled through the current web-page. Then, all of the sudden, the thumb of the hand on his face popped into his mouth. I'd known the man for twenty years, seen him through absolutely everything he'd dealt with in that time, and yet this was brand new. He must have been more upset than I'd ever seen him before, and I had—or so I thought—seen everything.

"You okay," I asked, gently. Greg nodded, barely seeming to notice me. "It's just… I've never been around when you were doing _that _before, and I'm kind of, a little freaked out by it." He looked away from the screen, wide-eyed and sad.

"By what," he asked, with a mouth full of thumb. "Shit!" His hand stopped instantly, and he began rubbing it dry on his pant leg. "You'd think I would have learned better by now, should of learned a long time ago. _He_ caught me doing that once, made me drink a whole bottle of hot sauce. Don't really get the logic behind that one but I don't think I ever did, or ever will." House was referring to the punishments that he had been subjected to, as they compared to what he had done wrong. John House always overreacted when his son did something wrong, or something he perceived to be wrong. Either way, the man overreacted and Greg paid the price.

"Well, you don't need me to tell you how horrible an over-reaction that was. But I think you keep telling me this stuff for a reason, and not because you want to talk bout what you went through as a kid. You know there's only so much personal space for me to give you. After a certain point of pulling away, the rubber band snaps back. It has to."

"Or it just snaps and breaks in half," he snarked. "But I'm not really afraid of that. I just said it to—" he started to say, but I cut him off this time.

"You said that for the same reason you keep telling me the most upsetting things can remember. You want me to leave you alone to wallow in your own misery. Permanently, if possible." He scowled, but the corner of his mouth almost appeared to be smiling. "But if I do that, you'll just sit here, reading case histories and stuff, until you starve to death." I quickly realized I'd taken it too far, and corrected. "When you obsess, and I'm not here to distract you every once in a while, you don't eat, or sleep, or do anything. I love you too much to let that happen." No response.

Another hour went by. He didn't show any signs of interest in anything besides his research. "Okay, you know what," I said, exacerbated. He didn't even look at me. "I'm getting really sick of this. Now move your fingers unless you want them to get smashed. We're going out." I closed the computer. "And I'm putting this away—somewhere you can't get to it—at least until you need the thing for work, or wanna look at porn or play video games, or something. That's okay, but this is dangerous. You can make yourself physically sick from obsessing and worrying about this too much. I'm gonna get the wheelchair, but if you even open the laptop between now and when we leave, I'm making you walk."

"I won't—I mean, I don't want to go outside, and if I stop looking, if you make me stop looking, I'm never gonna be able to figure out how to—I'm just not gonna figure this out." _Oh boy, _I thought. I sat back down beside him, wrapping an arm around his shoulder. "I don't think I've actually processed that this is—that I have…I hate being sick," he said, and let out a long sigh. I nodded. This was a normal response, not for Greg, but for anyone who had been given the same sort of news. I don't know how I'd expected him to react. I figured if anyone could leapfrog over the five stages of grief, it was him. I thought he was different, which I—as someone who delivered devastating news on a daily basis—should have known didn't matter. If you tell someone they have a disease that can and probably will kill and/ or cripple them, and destroy their lives, it will do the exact same thing to them emotionally. The degree of the melt down varies form person to person, as does the time it takes to come to terms with what they've been told, but everyone melts down.

"You're not going to find any answers with this," I told him, honestly, as I took my other hand and placed it on the lap top. "Not the kind you're looking for. You want to know what's gonna happen to you, exactly. You need to find out what's coming so you can prepare for it, but all you're going to find on the Internet and in magazines are accounts of how other people have been impacted by Multiple Sclerosis. Nobody knows exactly how or when it's going to hit them. All you're going to get from secondary research is maybes and might's. All of which you already know." When he didn't immediately correct me, I began to worry that I had been too harsh, too honest, too mean. House studied my face, his intense eyes completely focused on me, for at least seven minutes before his gaze shifted and he nodded.

"You're right, Wilson. I hate waiting and not knowing. It's worse than being sick. I think. It's—I dunno. I guess I'm still having trouble dealing with this." I nodded, rubbing his back some more, which seemed to calm him down a little. "Why did you suggest we go outside? Seems like a stupid thing to do."

"I wanna get you away from the computer for a while, do something to make you smile if possible, you know go get some ice cream, or do something else fun. We can go to the park and throw rocks at skateboarders." He shrugged, rubbing his head against my shoulder.

"I wouldn't mind an ice cream," he confessed, sitting up a little, using my body for support. "Only because I'm hungry. It's got nothing to do with anything you said about me obsessing or about being sick." I nodded once more, and helped him into the chair.

"Of course not," I chuckled, massaging his shoulders, and pressing my lips to his temples. "I've known you long enough to know that you never listen to a word I say." He smiled a little, but not by very much.

"Unless you're offering to pay for food," he added, with an extremely small laugh. I laughed at his joke and the two of us headed towards the door. "You know I was just kidding, and don't really want you to stop saying that—you know, stuff. Some of it actually does help a tiny, little bit.

"I love you, Greg. You don't need to worry, not one bit. I know. Stop making that face. I wouldn't stop even if you said that everything I say drives you up the wall, and that you never wanted to hear me speak again. I still wouldn't stop telling you how much I love you or promising to make sure you get better, or any of the other stuff I say, understand?"

Greg rolled his eyes, groaned, and said, "would you shut up already? And whatever happened to ice cream?" I told him I was ready to go when he was, and we left his apartment, and started down the street. "And uh—and thanks for what you said before, about…you know…everything."

"It's alright, Buddy," I whispered in his ear as we opened the door to the ice cream parlor. "I told you; I don't listen when you claim to not want to talk about personal stuff. Actually, I think I'm getting pretty good at reading you. I know when you need something from me—and usually even what that something is—and I know when you need space and I know you don't really wanna talk about this so I'll make it quick. I'm not bad at figuring out if you're okay with being touched although I'm occasionally wrong, but I pride myself on never going to far, and being able to stop myself before I really hurt or upset you." He shrugged, looking up at the menu. "What are you doing, you always get the same thing," I teased, tickled him gently, and pushed his chair up to the counter and ordered our cones.


	3. Chapter 3

AN: once again, I don't know everything about MS or steroids so if I get medical stuff wrong I'm sorry but I really wanted to do this the way I did. Hopefully, it won't detract from the story too much.

"I know I got a bad reputation  
and it isn't just talk, talk, talk  
If I could only give you everything  
You know I haven't got  
I couldn't have one conversation  
If it wasn't for the lies, lies, lies  
And still I ought to tell you everything  
'till I close my eyes," Freedy Johnston

Our first day back to work was incredible, not because anything good or bad happened, but because—with the exception of Cuddy, who apologized about the phone call and tried to hug him—everybody treated him the same as always. In fact, unless he asked them for something, not much changed at all over the next few months. The team members did eventually (after about a week) act as if they knew what was wrong. I was expecting Thirteen to be the first one to crack but I was wrong.

On the first day of our second week, we were sitting in the cafeteria, eating lunch, when Foreman entered, grabbed a plate, paid for it, and circled the room twice before sitting at our table. Greg growled.

"Leave this second, and I won't be forced to fire you," he said in a fairly calm voice. Of course, after five years and countless incidents, the duckling knew that this particular threat was an empty one. It was obvious to me, just how uncomfortable he was, but Eric didn't see it or didn't care. I tried on my own to stop it.

"Look, I know you want to help him, but Greg already has a neurologist, and he is doing fine, physically. Plus, even if he needed help, I can't imagine him being comfortable being treated by any doctor from this hospital," I explained, trying to sound polite but harsh.

"He lets you treat him." _No, technically he doesn't, _I thought, as Greg's knee bounced nervously under the table. I let my hand slide away from my plate and drop onto his knee.

"Actually he doesn't, but that's not the issue here," I managed to get out, before Greg finally regained control over his body, enough control to say something to Foreman, anyway.

"Look, I know you get all warm and fuzzy inside from taking care of Thirteen and you probably think that being my—whatever is going to boost your ego and stuff, but I'm not going to be your little Guinea pig. I'd prefer to not spontaneously develop brain tumors if I can avoid it. And I may not be able to fire you, but Cuddy can't keep me from giving all my clinic duty and scut work to my employees." Eric laughed to himself, but left anyway. "You're not gonna tell me to be _nice _to him, are you?" He didn't seem mad, just a little worried.

"Ordinarily," I said, unable to keep myself from laughing. "I' d probably lecture you, but his face—he went from looking like he actually cared about you to looking hurt, to looking scared, to mad so fast…and that was funny. I don't think I can reprimand you since I'm laughing this hard." He smiled, squeezing my hand, unafraid with a public display of affection. Probably because it wasn't really public.

After that, nobody tried to bother us again, although Cameron would show up at his office from time to time.

He said, "She's always got an excuse, like there's a paitent who needs my help, or she has a "medical question," but I know what she's really there for. I know what that girl wants," he mocked, pretending to yawn, and stretching out his arms so that he could point towards his lap.

"She's married to Chase, man. I think you missed the boat on that one." He shrugged, smiling. "Okay, what's the joke? You might as well tell me, I'm going to figure it out eventually." We were in my office, him on the couch, sitting up, me behind the desk, looking over files.

"You were married when we met, even if it was pretty much over. You were married to the psycho first time we did it, and you were married to Julie when Cuddy made me go to that medical conference in New York, and the two of us went away for the weekend." I couldn't help but laugh, thinking that while he had a point, Cameron and Chase were nothing like me and my exes. I tried to explain it, but by that point Greg was only half listening. So, I let him think whatever he wanted.

XX

Then, one night (about two months after we started working again) the two of us laid down to watch TV together, and he fell asleep in my arms. I stayed up watching him. Between being cramped on the sofa and the sounds of the television, he didn't stay out very long. He came out of his sleep, calmly, which was rare. Seemed like he'd just had a pleasant dream.

"I think we should get married," I said, and instantly clamped my hand over his mouth to prevent the uncontrollable obnoxious comment. "I know what you're going to say, that I'm only interested because you're sick, or that I haven't really gotten over losing Amber and am jumping on the nearest warm body, or both but you're wrong. I was going to ask you right before Foreman quit. But you got all depressed, then you started the whole Survivor thing, and were obsessed with finding new ducklings. I'm going to take my hand off your mouth now, because I know you're fighting a cold and are too stuffed up to be able to breathe through your nose, but I'm not done. You aren't gonna say anything until I am. Amber liked me more than I liked her, which wasn't all that much for either of us, and she liked that our being together was messing with your head more than she liked me. You need to hear these things because you've been stressing out and blaming yourself and I've been blaming you a little, which is insane because I love you, Greg. It's always been you. It was always supposed to be you," I explained, quickly and moved my hand.

House sighed but didn't say anything. I touched his hair, and continued with my speech. "But you weren't ready, and I—I knew that if I tried to do what you needed, you'd freak out, or get scared, and you would of left. Maybe you'd go away up here," I whispered, kissing the side of his head. I was close to tears. I knew I was going to cry. So, I hurried through the rest, faster than I would have liked. "But I also knew that there was a chance I could get you back from that, even if it meant you having to go to a hospital for a while. I hated the idea but that wasn't the worst case scenario. I was scared I might lose all of you, that you might leave, like Danny did and—" I broke off, sobbing.

"Whoa, Jimmy," he said, but I couldn't stop myself. "Jimmy," he pressed, lifting his head and looking me right in the eyes. "I'm okay. Come here; let me—yeah, there. It's _okay_. I don't think—you would have to rape me to get me upset enough to run away and live on the streets and—even if you had done that, me running off—well…see, that's just it. I can't imagine myself ever—oomph, I'm so stiff I can barely move—doing that. It's just not me." I nodded, sniveling. "But you didn't know that eighteen years ago, right?"

I nodded again, and the two of us stayed close, while Greg told me every stupid joke he could think of, smiling, trying to show me how strong and happy he was. "This is because of you, Jimmy. I'm already a lot better than I was when we met, better than I was fifteen, or ten, or even five years ago. The fact that you can even tell me this stuff…means—you've already helped me more than I ever thought was possible. And if you're saying that getting married to you is gonna make me feel safer and that I might be able to be happy one day, then, it sounds like the best idea ever. Just can't divorce me, dunno what I'd do."

"We gotta wait a little while. I want you to have everything and—of course—we need time for you to throw one of your patented bachelor parties. And one other thing. I feel like I have to explain to you about me marrying Bonnie and Julie even though I was in love with you," I started to say but he interrupted me.

"I was your number one but I wasn't ready to be—well you said it already. And the little things I let you do for me didn't satisfy your needs. They needed somebody, and they let you throw as much attention as you had to at them. But marrying them was like eating a packet of saltines, to tide you over until your dinner is ready. I mean, who takes 3:00 AM phone calls on their honeymoons, unless the caller is more important than their spouse?"

"Good, you get it. Then this isn't gonna take nearly as long as I thought," I told him, kissing his hair, and smiling. "Are you sure this is okay, because your life is changing rapidly, every aspect of it and I don't wanna push you too far too fast—what the Hell are you doing?" Greg's ace was the picture of intense, frustrated concentration. He had gone from being calm, to looking happy, to looking a little uncomfortable, to seeming really happy, to completely terrified. Something was wrong; I knew it. I just didn't know what. "Greg?"

"My legs…they won't—I've been trying to roll from my stomach onto my side ever since you first said you want to marry me, and I can't do it. I'm a little stiff, but they aren't sore. It doesn't hurt. I can't—I can't feel…Jimmy," he sobbed, pressing his entire face into my shirt. I rubbed his back and started to reach for the phone. "It's too fast. This shouldn't be happening so soon. I'm not _that _sick yet. I'm not—it's not supposed to progress from nothing to full on paralysis. Not this quick." I kissed his head again, trying to think of a way to calm him down. He started to cry. "I thought I had more time." My arm instantly moved back to his body, rubbing his arms, and shoulders, and neck, as I tried to remember if paralysis was a side effect of any of his medications.

"Look, Greg, I know you're terrified, but you need to calm down. There's dozens of things that could be wrong. I can only think of three but it might not be what you're worried about. This could be permanent, or a drug side effect, or a temporary flair up of the MS that will go away, and until we figure out what this is and how long it might last for, you have to stay calm and assume—I know—that it's just one of the medications, maybe the new one. Now, I have to call an ambulance. Don't make that face, if I did somehow manage to carry you to the car, and drove you to a far off hospital, where nobody knows us—just to give you a little privacy—I could make you much worse. Then, I'm gonna call Dr. White, and he'll meet us at the hospital." He groaned but didn't fight me. Of course, his being completely powerless made it easy for me.

Two rather large paramedics nearly broke down the door trying to get in and then knocked a bunch of books off his shelves. Idiots all but dropped him, and yet he was so freaked out that the guy didn't complain once. They let me ride in the back of the ambulance with him. I had to sit in a seat, but he was able to squeeze my right hand, while I stroked his hair with the left. Cameron examined him when we first arrived. Greg figured (and I agreed) that she lost the coin toss over who had to take him. She scratched his feet and legs with a safety pin, and rubbed a Q-tip against them, one at a time. She asked if he could feel any of it, at which point the sensation came in.

"Of course I feel that. You just stuck me with a pin," he grumbled after the first test." We both looked at him, doubtfully. I sat beside my _fiancé_, wrapping my arms around his body, and holding my palms over his eyes.

"Try it again," I suggested, and then mouthed the word, wait. She didn't move. He said he still felt it. I mouthed now, once he'd quit whining. She tested him again.

"Now be honest," Cameron demanded. "Do you really feel what I'm doing or are you trying to be brave?" He finally told the truth. He had no sensation in either leg, below the hips. And while he had the same rang of motion—with somebody moving them—he couldn't lift, wiggle, or move on his own. "I think Wilson's right," she said, which—without real tests or time to observe his reactions—didn't mean squat.

White arrived a little less than an hour after we did, preformed the same examination, and then suggested Greg stop taking the new steroid, claiming that once it was out of his system, we'd be able to see more. House was admitted, and taken to a private room, upstairs. I curled up in a tiny hospital bed with him, carefully massaging the area around, but not too close to his IV, because it was one of the few things I could do to keep him calm, to make the pain stop. Dr. White had started him on a new—in every sense of the word—steroid because his stomach had been bothering him so much, and this one was supposed to have better results in patients with intestinal issues.

"At least you're not hallucinating anymore," I teased, kissing him on the mouth. He smiled, weakly. "You wanna switch positions?" He shrugged. "Not even a little laugh?"

"Wasn't funny," he explained. Greg stared into space some more. "Wish you would of stepped in, been my doctor, instead of the scared life partner crying in the corner." I sighed, and kissed him again. "I know its' a conflict of interest, but you can—I mean, can you...please? Talk to me like you're—you know what I want, don't you?"

"Okay, Greg," I whispered, holding his head on my shoulder. "It's like I told you earlier, there are three very likely possibilities. You might be getting worse, and this could last…forever. You might be having an episode, and the problem could go away. Once it does, just about everything else will go back to normal. And last but not least, it could be the new steroids. If it is, we just have to transition you from this stuff to another drug, and you'll be fine." He nodded, exhaustedly. I squeezed him tighter.

"Thanks Jimmy. That was almost exactly what I needed. Now—can you…would you just talk about something else, something that's got nothing to do with me being a poor, dying cripple?"

"Shh," I said, in an attempt to sound soothing, simultaneously rubbing his arms. "Stop trying to shock me. If I'm still willing to marry a guy whose diapers I might have to change, do you really think that he can _say_ anything to make me change my mind?" He smiled, deviously and I was grateful to get a few minutes of him acting like the jerk I'd fallen in love with.

"No, of course not. I know you love me forever or—whatever, but when I complain about how bad it hurts, and how crappy my life is, you give me more Vicodin." I laughed; we both did.

"You're on Morphine, do you really need Vicodin too," I asked, patting his shoulder some more. He shrugged again, looking way a little, and then—finally—leaning back against me. "I know you're gonna laugh at me, but I want you and me to have a real wedding. It doesn't have to be religious. Hell, if you want, we can have a little trip to City Hall, just you, me, and whoever you want as our witnesses." He smirked. "But I'd prefer a big fancy thing, with all our family members, cute, matching tuxedos, you finally smiling, and enjoying yourself at one of my weddings, a nice big cake, and the two of us actually getting to be what we're supposed to be." House rolled his eyes, and gave me a elbowed my stomach, sharply. "What, you don't like it?" He made a soft sound that was almost like a cry. "I am hurting you?" He shook his head. "Okay," I said, sighing a little. "Oh, hey, we need to have a little chat—about the wedding, or rather—afterwards. Do you—we need to decide if you want to keep your job or if you're gonna stay home, cook, clean, and take care of our kids," I mocked, reaching under the covers to tickle him. He laughed a little, but seemed like he was trying to pull away. So, I let him go.

"If anybody is going to be the woman, it's you. We—I…you're the cook. You're the one who cares about doing the dishes too. I used to eat off of paper plates and from takeout containers before you moved in and made me change." I smiled, blushed, and shrugged. I tried to get Greg to sleep, but he was too scared, or too nervous, or too uncomfortable to do so. He grumbled a lot, coming close to tears a few times, talking, and occasionally closing his eyes and "resting" for a few minutes. A few hours later, I needed something.

"I know that everybody's been bugging you ever since you got here, but I want you to do something for me. I mean, I would like you to. Please, try and wiggle your toes—for me?" He nodded, grunted, and the top half of his body got extremely tense. He struggled for a long time and eventually collapsed, exhausted. "I shouldn't have done that," I realized, like a moron. "I'm the only one who doesn't push you. Or I was, and now you can't trust me."

"Don't be an idiot, Jimmy. I did that because I desperately want to go home, but I know I can't do that until I either get better or until we find out that I'm never gonna walk or move anything below my waist again." I sighed, wishing I had an actual answer for him. "Don't bother trying to cheer me up. I know what you're gonna say. You're sure it's temporary, but you'll still love, standby, and take care of me if it isn't." I nodded, rubbing his shoulders. Greg let out another long sigh. "You really gonna let me throw one of my bachelor parties?"

"Maybe you can scale it back a _little_. I mean, uh—the last one was great, but if I hadn't moved in with you, I'd still be cleaning up my apartment. And I wasn't even the one getting married!"

"There's a reason for that," he explained, while he lifted, moved, and lowered his arm. "I was having some problems, and I think, subconsciously, I wanted you to notice, and…or maybe not. Didn't really think it was a seriously problem back then. None of that really matters now. Although, at Chase's all I did was hide in the bathroom by 'myself.'"

"I know. I was pretty drunk, but I do remember not being able to find you before everything gets all fuzzy. Wait a second I just remembered something—didn't you hide somewhere during the party you threw when Bonnie and I were getting married?" He blushed a little, and scrunched up his nose. "That one must have been tough for you."

"I thought…I was scared—I didn't realize it was gonna be such a disaster. Thought you liked her more than me. Thought you were like everybody else—that's why I kept telling you to dump _her_."

"I was miserable with Bonnie, and with Julie. You make me happy. How about we have the party and the two of us can hide in the bathroom together. Or, we save the money, buy a keg of beer, or a really expensive bottle of champagne, or whatever you want, and we hunker down some place quiet, and just—enjoy the pleasure of each other's company." I smiled, pressed the back of my hand against his cheek.

"You're such a pussy. I can't believe I agreed to this. Maybe we shouldn't get married." He was just messing with me, but I pretended to be afraid because I figured he wanted that reaction. "Well, maybe if you buy me a 72" flat screen…might consider—and stop tickling me!"

"No way," I teased, but let go of his stomach. "On the flat screen."

"Aw, come on. It's not _that _expensive. Probably cheaper than a diamond ring, and since there is no way in Hell that I might let you buy me an engagement ring—I just thought…" I laughed a little, patting him on the back. "What's the difference?"

"Well, if you were talking about engagement rings, you'd probably say that they are basically a way for a husband to be to let everyone know that he basically owns the wife to be. And to let them know she's officially off the market." He smiled which made me feel much better about his situation. If he could still smile, and laugh, and act like himself, then even the worst possible outcome wasn't as horrible as I had previously imagined.

"I promise you're gonna be alright. I can't promise that you'll get better but if you don't we're still going to find ways to make sure that nothing really changes between us. And we will find ways to—be intimate."

"I can't even sits up," he reminded me, as if I could forget. "Do you really think you can get me off?" I slid out from under his body, climbed off of the bed, and started to walk away. "Where are you going?" He sounded desperate.

"I gotta pee. Didn't think I needed to ask for permission." He made the saddest, most pathetic face I had ever seen, on him or anybody else. "I really need to go. What should I do, use your bedpan? Oh come on, Greg. 30 seconds, tops." He smiled, just the tiniest bit. I went to the bathroom, grabbed a washcloth, soaked it with warm water, and came back with it. "We're gonna try a little something, okay," I suggested.

"A sponge bath?" House rolled his eyes. I ignored him, gently removing his gown, and pulled the privacy curtain around his bed. "Jimmy, don't—I…what are you doing? What are you gonna do?"

"Just relax" I whispered, "and tell me if I do anything that hurts, scares, or makes you uncomfortable." He nodded, but kept staring up at the TV at first. "Now I'm just gonna start by wrapping my hand around your—alright, alright I won't narrate, just stop making that face, might get stuck. Do you feel that or is this a complete waste of—oh, hello there. Looks like not every inch of you is paralyzed after all."

"Shut up," he groaned, leaning his shoulders and head back against me. I continued to rub, and twist, with the washcloth wrapped around but not completely covering the top of his cock, while my thumb reached up, rolling over the head, making small, deep circles. He moaned softly. "Can—can you do that thing with your tongue?" I smiled, but shook my head.

"Not right now. I wanna be able to hold you right now, okay?" He shrugged but closed his eyes, smiling huge, and he came, hard. "So what you think," I asked, and started to towel him clean. Then, I dried him off, helped him get dressed, and moved the curtain away.

"Jimmy, I know it's a really stupid question, but um—I think I might be able to sleep better if I had something besides this flimsy piece of crap on." I smiled, and reached under the bed, pulling out a small suitcase.

"I packed some PJs and clean underpants for you and a couple changes of clothes for myself, while the paramedics were wrecking your apartment. Here let me help you with that too." I pushed his feet into the legs of a pair of pajama bottoms, and then slid them up over the lower half of his body. "Much better, right?" He nodded, and drifted off within less than fifteen minutes. He stayed out from 1:00 until almost 10:00.

XX

On his first full day in the hospital, Greg had an MRI done, and it showed a small amount of swelling near part of his spine that controlled his legs. I thought the news would make him ecstatic. He was going to be alright. This was not one more horrible change he was going to need to learn how to deal with. Everything was going to be just fine. Instead, the news made him sad. It almost seemed like he was disappointed by it. "What is the matter with you," I asked, finally, around 2:00 PM. "I thought you'd be dancing on the ceiling by now."

"That one wasn't funny either," he pointed out. I apologized. "Eh, I'm used to it." _He needs more time, _I realized, suddenly. _Let him talk it out. He'll get to the real reason eventually. _Greg did exactly what I expected him to do. He told me all sorts of things none of it useful, only about half of it true. A little later, he came to the truth. "My leg doesn't hurt. I'm not used that, but…I—it's sort of nice. Not worth all the trouble, but I was starting to think I might be able to deal with this being permanent. Now, I know that the pain's coming back. Probably soon."

"I know. I understand just how much it's gotta suck to know that you have got to go back to that, but look on the bright side. At least you'll be able to walk again."

"Yeah," he spat, reaching for the TV remote. "But only if I'm going less than fifty feet at a time." He had a point. "Some great life to go back to." Greg shifted as best he could, dropping his head and closing his eyes, pretending to sleep.

"I'm here if and when you need to talk. Otherwise you're free to sulk and I'll do whatever you need or want." This caused his eyes to snap open and jaw to drop. "Didn't think I'd do _that _did you?" He shook his head. "I like to think I can tell the difference between when you need to be—pushed, I guess is the right word—and when I should pull back. Now's one of the latter. Am I right?" He nodded again, even relaxed a little, tilting his head back to look up at me. "Just say something, anything. Just a couple of words so I know you're still in there someplace," I begged after a while.

"Get bent," he growled. I made myself smile, so he'd relax. I said that was good enough. "Are you gonna let me get away with all kinds of crap now?" I smiled. "What?"

"Maybe—if something terrible happens, and you end up in more pain or you go blind from this or—when it starts to get really bad, then yeah. A few things probably are going to change when we get there. For now—you just haven't been through very much. You're no more pathetic now than you were before. If you want me to feel bad for you, tell me you're scared, or—uh…act pathetic. Make the pouty face—there. That look; _that _will make Cuddy promise you'll never have to do clinic duty again, and she'll keep her promise. Maybe try...crying always works, um…huh. I dunno. Can't think of anything else. There's probably other stuff, I'm just distracted." House pouted at me a few times but stayed quiet for most of the rest of the day. He finally got some more sleep, and while he was out, I rubbed his back and shoulders, over and over, whispering how much I loved him. He seemed a little more comfortable through the day, as if accepting the return of both his pain and the use off his legs. I kept him busy, telling him about the different things he could do for our wedding.

"You know what sucks? I can meet a woman today, got to any city in the world, and the two of us can get married, like that," he said, snapping his fingers. "But you and me. We can…we'll only be able to get a legally binding marrage in Massachusets, and even then all the other states still won't recognize it. Might as well have it done in Canada. Just as worthless."

"You're right. It's _not _fair. But that kind of stuff happens sometimes. You and I will be together forever, no matter what. A marriage is just a symbol of that. I'm not planning to marry you for insurance purposes, or to get a couple blenders and a new iPhone. I _love _you, and I want everyone to know it. Aside from getting a billboard in Times Square, this is the best way I can think of to do that." I tightened my hug. "That doesn't bother you, does it?" Greg shook his head. "Are you sure you actually wanna go ahead with this? You never really—I didn't think I would ever get you to agree to it." He shrugged. "Don't do that. This is important. If I push too hard, make you do this when you aren't ready, I _will _lose you, like we talked about last night."

"I never would have said yes I you had asked me before. _Never _would of done—I'm getting better at talking to you, starting to realize I can actually tell you stuff and not hafta worry that you're gonna tell everyone, or uh—whatever stupid stuff I used to think would happen." Of course he knew exactly how he used to believe I'd react to his secrets, but he wasn't ready for me to know it just yet. So, I let him slide. "You really wanna do this stuff?"

"Of course I do. I don't take marriage lightly, as difficult as that may be to believe." He laughed, like I knew he would. Then, his eyes looked back up at mine. I stared into those icy blue depths for what felt like hours. Finally, he broke the gaze and the silence.

"Okay," he said at last. "You're not lying. Not about wanting to stick with me. Although, you probably wanted to stay with all your wives. Speaking of which, if we get married, I'm the man."

"First of, we're both men, and second, I already told you. I only married Bonnie and Julie because I knew they were short term projects, people I could take care of while I waited for you to be ready to be my main—my main love."

"You almost called me a project," he smirked, mostly to cover up his fear, discomfort, and concern. He wasn't sure if he should be bothered by that, if it was a horrible, terrifying thing or not.

"I think of a person as a skyscraper. You need a strong foundation—the ability to trust and love, stuff like that. I know that face. I'm terrible at this. I get it, but don't interrupt. Then there's the frame—uh...I dunno where exactly all the emotional stuff fits, but uh—um. After that, we put up walls, then a roof, then carpeting, wall papers, fancy stuff. Then—and this part I do know—you furnish it, friends, family, a job, hobbies, skills…relationships, you get the point don't you?" I braced myself for another verbal assault, followed by his real response. Insulting anything that came out of anyone's mouth was a reflex. He couldn't control it anymore than he could stop himself from vomiting if someone had shoved their finger down his throat. I prided myself on being the only person who knew and understood this. I tried hard not to judge, yell at, or lecture him for it, because it was like yelling an infant for crying.

"That was the worst metaphor I ever heard, and I used to be Chase's and Cameron's boss!" Then, he took a moment, sighed, and looked at me oddly, almost like he wanted to say something but wasn't sure how. I kissed the top of his head. "You really think I could be a solid skyscraper?" I smiled, ready with the exact sort of comeback he would love.

"Well, maybe not a skyscraper, but a duplex, or a small apartment building isn't out of the question." He only smiled because he knew he was supposed to. "You'll never be able to be perfect. We're only shooting for normal, but you should know…we might fall short. I won't let you get too far off. You'll be fine, healthy enough to be alone overnight when I need to work, and not feel the need to call me and insist I come home to talk about your latest let down, nightmare, flashback, or whatever, okay? I mean, uh—how does that sound?" He shrugged. "Would you like to not need to take ten Vicodin at the end of the day just to be able to sleep for an hour or two a night?"

"Oh please, I don't take ten Vicodin at once! At the very most, on my worst night ever, I only take eight, maybe nine." He cracked another tiny smile, but once again, he didn't mean it. I carefully hugged him, pulling his body back a little so I could look him in the eyes. Greg shrugged uncomfortably. "You still okay—I mean, do you still wanna marry me?" I smiled, huge and nodded. "And people think _I'm _crazy!"

"Do you think you could maybe try and wiggle your toes or me again?" House looked at me intensely for a little more than a minute and then shook his head. "No you can't try or you're trying and it isn't working?" No response. "Does your leg hurt? At least there's that right." He closed his eyes and pretended to be asleep. "Sorry, I suck at this, but you're sick and you need me to be better. So I'll get better. I love you, and I'm willing to do anything for you. But you're still pretending to be asleep, which means I gotta try something else," I explained. House pretended to snore. "I will marry you_ and_ you are the last one. Got it?" This tiny, little—real—smile appeared on his face, and shortly after that he really did sleep.

XX

Dr. White came by the next morning, to discuss 'the situation,' as he called it. He said this, "We put you on a different steroid because of the GI issues you were having with the Solu-Medrol." He said we as if anyone other than him were responsible for our current situation. "I think you're experiencing one off the less common side effects. Shouldn't be too much of a problem though. We'll get this cleared up real quick though." Even I wanted to beat the crap out of him. He hadn't even bothered to mention this when he'd told us about the great new steroid. He talked to us like we were a couple of morons, and to top everything off he was making this seem like it wasn't a big deal. Usually, House would have been furious but he was stunned. So, I yelled at the doctor for him.

"You think? He can't walk! He _can't _walk! We're both doctors; don't you _think _we could figure that one out on our own? I'm not sure if he'll continue being your patient after this but if he does, and you somehow manage to make a mistake with his meds again, we'll not only stop coming to see you, but we will go on every message board, and to every conference, and tell every one and anyone who will listen just how big of a screw up you really are. Got that, you incompetent quack?" I couldn't tell which of them was more surprised by my reaction. White looked like he was going to wet himself. Greg almost seemed happy or grateful, like I had done him a favor. "I'm sorry for the outburst, but you're supposed to be helping him and you're just making everything worse!" House put his right hand on my elbow and his left on my thigh, in an attempt to calm me down. "_I _could do this better than you." Dr. White stared at us for a long time, making certain that we didn't want to insult or threaten him anymore. Then, he raced out of the room nervously.

"Jimmy, you're an oncologist," Greg said firmly. "When I get cancer, you can be my primary doctor. But you are not a neurologist. Which means you can't be my neurologist. Although, that doesn't mean we hafta keep going back to Dr. Moron; just that it can't be you."

"You're right. I'm sorry, that was... nevermind. I' gonna—I'll…that—how are you feeling today?" He smiled weakly, moving his hands to my face and turning my head so I was looking at his feet instead of his eyes. He moved his toes back and forth, and then rotated each ankle in little circles for a good thirty seconds. After that, he collapsed in my arms, tired and sweaty. He was getting better but it was slow going. The steroids weren't completely out of his system but the swelling was going down. He might have been able to move his whole leg had he wanted too, but at this point any movement at all seemed like a miracle.

"Wow," I whispered, kissing his temples. "I think we need a new neurologist. Do you?" He shrugged. The rest of that day was pretty slow. We talked, watched TV, ate, and went to bed around midnight.

The next day was spent watching TV, talking about everything from monster trucks—there was a show in less than a week, and he wanted to go but was afraid that he might not make it—to the weddings, to paitents, to food, to Cuddy, to hospital gossip, and playing video games. I managed to keep him from spending all his time on the Internet researching MS but he was getting more and more bored by the minute. I decided to create a distraction for him. Half way through General Hospital, I paged his team, current and former, to his office and told him I had some paperwork to do. He shushed me.

Once I explained that there was no case, Taub left and Chase and Foreman only stayed because their girls were doing the same. "It's House," I told them. 'He's fine…well nothing too bad is happening. He's starting to get better. Turns out he had a bad reaction to a new medication. But he's going to be here a few more days, and he's really bored."

"He's always bored," Chase whined, like a five-year-old.

"If you're not going to be helpful, why did you volunteer," Alison retorted. He shrugged, and made the puppy dog face. She didn't react, and he gave up on trying to get sympathy. "So, what did you want us to do?"

"Has anyone had any interesting cases, lately or not lately? Even an idea for a really good case, one he'd like to see would work. We can't share people's personal information with him, but I had this idea for a game. We'll fill out forms with some background information, and the symptoms. He's allowed to choose a handful of tests and we give him the results. It's like any other case only there's no actual person. You don't have to play it with him; I'll take care of that. Just make up intake forms, "lab results" and stuff. Even if they're written on printer paper and don't look completely real…it doesn't have to be painstakingly complicated. Tox results could say "Paitent A tox screen: negative for all drugs." Or whatever. And the more cases we can put together, the longer he'll be entertained."

"He's going to know this is a game, right? Because if he thinks this is real, and we—he won't be—he'll get mad." That seemed to be the only concern for Robert. Eric was already intrigued, and went right to work, thinking carefully.

"Yeah, of course," I said, chuckling. "And—obviously, we shouldn't use patients whose cases he worked on because he'll probably remember. Playing Clue when you've peaked in the envelope is pretty much pointless." I couldn't really think of anything, and I watched from the doorway. I wanted to stay and watch, make sure everything was working, but I was also worried about leaving Greg alone for too long. After whispering something to Chase, Cameron got up, walked over, and gave me a little hug.

"Do you want me to go and sit with him for a while so you can take a nap? It's not like you can help us with this." I nodded, and started down the hall. "You need to get some rest," she called after me, "or you'll need to be hospitalized yourself. What's going to happen to him then?" I gave her the finger and returned to Greg's room where he was making his way back to the bed, on his own, but leaning heavily against the IV pole, pretty much dragging himself along, as if on crutches.

"Where'd you go," he asked, eyeing me suspiciously. I told him about the game, figuring there was no point in lying, or hiding it. "That's a stupid idea," he moaned, falling onto the bed, in almost the exact right way. "These aren't cases I worked on are they?" I told him the whole story. "Maybe it'll help kill some time." I smiled, and gently brought his hand to my lips, kissing it softly. "I wanna go home."

"I'm working on it, Buddy." I tried to kiss his arm again, but he pulled away. I let him. "I'm also looking into a new doctor, doing a lot of research. Uh, would you mind driving all the way to New York, if I could find someone really good?" He shrugged, closing his eyes, and trying to cuddle with me. "Do you want me to not be involved in the search? You can pick somebody—do the research yourself, find the best neurologist on your own, if that's what you want to, you know," I stammered.

"We're still getting married, right?" I nodded, and gave him a soft kiss on the temple. "Then we're a real couple, or whatever people in our situation are. We are supposed to work together, make decisions with each other, stuff like that, right?" I smiled. _Attaboy, _I thought."You do the hard, boring work. Narrow it down to five, or two, or three, or four, or a couple of choices. Tell me about them. Help me pick. I don't care if we hafta move to California. I need the best doctor for me, and White isn't it. I wanna—I would like or us to have a good, long, healthy life together."

"That is exactly what I want." Greg gave me a gentle shove, chuckling, and the two of us had a little play fight. We were still laughing when the ducklings showed up with his new game. House was laughing. House was smiling. He was still sick, but he was getting better.


	4. Chapter 4

AN: this was getting long so I cut it off before I got to the end of the honeymoon. More coming soon.

We decided to get married in the spring so—hopefully—there wouldn't be any snow, or ice, or anything else that might make it difficult for Greg to get around. He agreed to skip the bachelor party but it wasn't because he didn't want one. He was so sick he could barely get off the bathroom floor.

House had been having digestive issues on and off ever since he was diagnosed, but they got increasingly more (and occasionally decreasingly) severe about two months before the wedding. Our neurologist had him try doubling on his antacid first, and then asked him to try eating blander food (which I lovingly prepared for both of us) and finally—at my insistence—started him on a new medication for his stomach. I heard about it from somebody on one of the MS "support group" message boards I frequented. My first post about his intestinal difficulties was received well, but the suggestions were less than helpful. Several people swore that vegetarian or macrobiotic diets had cured their troubles. A few others gave tips on the best ways to take the medications, i.e. with food for some, empty stomach for others, morning for a few pills, this one will make you tired so take it before bed, stuff like that. A couple more suggested over the counter drugs, herbal supplements, and/ or prescription meds that helped them. House was willing to try all of it (eventually) but none of the posts had any information that helped him. Then we found DaBearsGuy84 post on the morning of an appointment with Dr. Stern. It was a rave review of some new prescription strength antacid. Unfortunately, when I told Greg about this, his reaction was less than enthusiastic.

"What do you mean by new," he asked.

"It's only been available in the US for about six months," I told him, truthfully.

"Did you research this wonder drug or are we taking he dopey jock's word for it?" _It's been around in Canada and Europe for years, _I thought.

"I was just about to do an Internet search but you woke up and I didn't know if you were crying because you were hungry, or scared, or if you needed your diaper changed, or just for the attention. Had I known taking care of you was gonna be this hard, I would of had an abortion." He laughed, hard.

Stern shared House's concerns. He told us he too needed to do more research before prescribing a drug he'd never heard of. I then proceeded to call him twice a day every day over the next three weeks. House wasn't getting any better and I couldn't stand to watch my baby suffer. I refused to go easy on the poor doctor—even though I knew he was probably twice as busy as me—until he finally agreed the drug was worth trying. He finally wrote Greg a prescription on the morning of the day before the wedding ceremony.

That night he seemed well enough to be able to eat something besides chicken soup or saltines and keep it down. He went to bed with me some time around 9:45—that's how sick he'd been feeling—and he slept well on and off until the alarm went off in the morning. I got out of bed before he did, shaved, showered, washed and blow dried my hair, and put my shirt, underpants and my pants. Then, I knelt beside him, and kissed his forehead, gently smoothing his hair back.

"Good morning," I whispered as he finally opened his eyes. "So, are we getting married today or are you gonna run away and leave me forever?" House wrinkled his forehead, as if thinking it over. "God, you're an ass!" He smiled huge, grabbing onto me, and stood up, heading towards the bathroom. He got ready, even shaving. Although, he only agreed to do that because I _did_ buy him—us—the flat screen as an engagement present. We'd decided to go with a short visit to a courthouse this time, as I had had more than enough of the big, boring, over crowed wedding, and because House didn't want it either. Blythe agreed to be our witness at the ceremony. Then Greg and I would jet off to Honolulu for two weeks of "fun in the sun."

XX

I'd wanted to go to Hawaii on each of my previous honeymoons but it had never worked out. Sam had her heart set on a resort in Cancun, where we were assured that they purified the tap water in the hotel. "It's perfectly safe, no worry," the owner told us. She and I spent the whole trip sick as dogs and arguing over who got the toilet, when, and for how long. The loser—always me—had to use the public restroom in the lobby. My second wedding was followed by a trip to a spa where Bonnie and I were together only at dinner and in bed—and most of _that _tie she was sleeping thanks to the Valium she took every night—and my third…at least Julie tried to compromise. Neither of us liked the place the other wanted so we found this dude ranch, which was actually quite fun. We spent 9 days there, and I loved every minute of it. Until I fell off a horse on the 6th day, and broke my wrist. It wasn't as bad as it could have been though. She didn't abandon me to sit by myself and watch the other guests having fun. Julie agreed to stay away from the horses since I couldn't ride, and sort of took care of me; she even helped me cut and eat my food.

So, I was pretty excited when I told Greg I wanted to go to Hawaii, and he said it sounded great him. Okay, his exact words were, "I'll go anywhere as long as you don't try to get me pregnant; I am _so_ not ready to be a mom yet." Then, he chuckled and kissed my forehead. "I like that idea, Baby," he did admit. "Oh, one more rule, no SCUBA diving or swimming with sharks or whatever." I allowed myself to smile. Glad to see I was all right with it, he went on to make fun of me for the next fifteen minutes, mostly because I was foolish enough to tell him about my bad honeymoon experiences.

XX

"House," I called from the bedroom. "Are you gonna want a little something to eat before we leave? Your mom is taking us out after but they might not get to us until 12:30—1:00. Later if things are busy." Blythe had been extremely supportive, once the initial shock of the gay thing wore off—which was quickly—but my parents were less wonderful. They didn't disown me, or scream, "you're going to Hell," or anything. They were glad to hear I was finally happy, however, they also said they would not go to House and my wedding. When Greg told his mother about this, I thought he was being mean but it actually turned out to be an extraordinary gesture of niceness. She was the best mother-in-law I'd ever had. By a lot. She was kind, and understating; she even offered to do anything we needed to help with the wedding. She also said she loved me for making Greg happy, and was beyond supportive, enough to more than make up for what my own mother and father's lack of interest and support.

"Jimmy," he sniffed, returning to the room and standing before me. "I think something is wrong." His eyes were huge, and filled with pain and anxiety. "It's my feet..." I grabbed his hand, gently pulling his body down onto the bed, and held him in my lap. My hand automatically reached for the phone to call Dr. Stern. "My feet, they feel like they're standing on a block of ice," he whimpered. I was dumbfounded. My mind went completely blank. I couldn't for the life of me remember what (if anything) caused a cold sensation in a person's feet. _Wait, _my anxiety-riddled brain realized. _Cold feeling feet…cold feet! _He saw the realization wash over my face, howled with laughter, and fell back on the mattress, knocking me over with him like a couple dominoes.

"I am going to strangle you," I swore, wrapping my arms across his chest and locking my legs around his hips. "Or duct tape your testicles to your leg." This only made him laugh more uproariously. "If you want or need to back out of this for some reason, now is pretty much your last chance." He shook his head. "Anything you need to do, or would like to do? Strip club, hooker, hot girl at a bar who might be in for a threesome?"

"The only reason I wanted a bachelor party was so I could have sex one last time as a free man. I mean, sex with somebody other than you. If it happened before the wedding it's just a mistake. After the wedding, it's an affair, which—even in your playbook—is a definite foul. But I realized, on one of the many nights when you were sitting at my side while I barfed everywhere, and washing my face and stuff, that I don't ever want to be with anyone else, not ever again."

"Wow," I exclaimed, kissing his neck softly. "I feel the same way, House," I whispered. "And I know it's hard for you to believe but that's the truth…now, if it were you _and _me and someone else," I let my voice trail off. He nodded in agreement. "I didn't feel this way about any of my wives. Even on the day of the wedding, I'd find myself looking at other women, wanting them…you understand right?"

"I understand that you're a perverted, horny bastard," he giggled. I tickled Greg mercilessly; continuing with my crappy, fake wrestling hold. "I hafta pee and if you don't stop that; there's no guarantee I won't do it in the bed and on your suit," he told me, and snickered when I let him up. "We should definitely get something to eat. This damn wedding thing could easily take all day."

"You know, I was gonna offer to help you get your rocks off this morning but if you're gonna be a little bitch about it, you're on your own, House." I giggled a little, hoping he'd be proud of my use of slang.

"I figured you'd like me more if I acted like a bitch," he retorted. "Sorry." I swore it was okay. A minute went by. He flushed the toilet, and came back to me. "I know it's stupid and pathetic and I shouldn't even ask, but I gotta know. If you could pick between Amber and me…"

"Hey, Greg," I whispered, wrapping my arms around his body, and swaying a little. "I love you. I have always loved you, and if I had to pick, it would be Gregory House. No contest. Now come on; this is our wedding day. Yours and mine. We're gonna be happy. It's gonna be great, and we are going to go on the best honeymoon ever. I got us a very nice suite, in a fancy, but not too prissy, hotel. So, if the MS flairs up, we can stay in our room and screw like rabbits, order room service, and prank call every room in the building. Alright?" He nodded, and let me help him get dressed, so we could get moving.

"I don't know what's wrong with me today. I just feel kind of sad, and a little nauseated. That's pretty normal though. It's not nerves 'cause of the wedding. I wanna get married to you. I trust you to be my husband and to take care of me but I…I don't know. My leg is a little more sore than usual," he finally admitted and begrudgingly took the extra pain pill I gave him.

We had a small breakfast (dry toast and coffee for him, herbal tea and a scone for me) in the hotel's coffee shop and then a taxi drove us to city hall. He was pretty well behaved all day. Of course, I kept him preoccupied with games and gossip. We were done with the ceremony around 4:00, and—after a shower and a change of clothes at the hotel—were just on time for an early dinner with my new mother in law.

Greg made fun of the other couples who were having their weddings, and everyone else, both gay and straight, pointing out the "Uggos" and betting with me over who would sire the most hideous children. Strangely though, this was all in whispers. House was always a boisterous person. Now, he was practically silent, while he sat on a bench and rubbed his leg and (rarely) stood up to pace a little. He was quiet at dinner too, as though he was expecting something to go wrong.

"Are we bothering you, dearest," I asked, gently poking him with the side of my arm. Greg elbowed me back, smiling just a tiny little bit. I chuckled, hugging him happily, without getting out of my seat.

"I'm not bored. I just don't know how to converse with humans. At least when it's just you and me there's some overlap, but I can't pretend to know what the right ting to say is in 90% of my conversations with _anyone _else." I sighed, kissing him on the temple.

"Is the food okay," I asked, looking down at his mostly untouched dinner. "Or should we stop for some fast food burgers and fries on the way back to the hotel?" He forced a tiny grin.

"I'm sorry, Jimmy. I'll eat more. It just—my stomach _is_ getting better but I'm not a hundred percent yet. Plus I'm a little terrified we're gonna wake up in Hawaii, one morning, and I'll be blind or something," he whispered. He clearly didn't want to upset his mother who loved her son and hated that her child was sick.

"Isn't a worsening of your condition getting always going to be a possibility no matter where you go or what you do," Blythe asked, grabbing his plate and pulling it off to the side. "And don't force yourself to eat just because I'm watching. James told me you've been having tummy troubles."

"Sounds like something he'd say," he mocked. "Yeah but at least my doctor is close by when I'm at home and I know the hospitals are decent even in up here. Only reason I'm not refusing to go flat out is because Wilson needs to and I want him to be happy. I'm also looking forward to having some fun." Blythe stood up, walked around the table, and hugged her son.

"Are you going to be happy in Hawaii?" He nodded, looking up into her eyes. "Then, go. Have fun. If something is going to happen, it's better you have to experience it after a great day on the beach, than if you had sat around your apartment moping for the past 48 hours, right?" Greg smirked a little, said yes, and did all he could to be better company the rest of the night, although I think the bottle of champagne we shared had more to do with him opening up than anything I (or his mom) did. We went back to the hotel room, and he curled up in bed beside me in bed.

"We don't have to make love," I said, pulling away as he started to kiss me. "I want to, naturally. I'm a man. So, as you know, I'm pretty much always in the mood. But you seem a little…uneasy. I don't wanna hurt you in—don't look at me like that," I started to say but he cut me off with another kiss, climbing on top of me, and ripping my shirt open. "Say it Greg. Tell me out loud that you are okay with it, or one of us is sleeping on the couch."

He looked down at me nervously and said, "What happens if I tell you I can't…at least, not right now?" I touched his hair softly. "Because you've got a little problem that needs taking care of."

"Not that little," I whined pathetically. Greg looked away. "Relax. I'll go to the bathroom, make my "little problem" disappear, and then we can go to sleep and—well, we have a really early flight tomorrow—and I figured we'd sleep some more on the plane; so I got us seats up in first class…you know, the kind that recline all the way back, and come with free slippers—and I thought we could maybe join the mile high club or something. Hmm?"

"You're an idiot. Who talks like _that_?" I chuckled, kissing his head. Then, I got up. When I came back, he was taking his bedtime medications, already fully dressed in his pajamas, and warm fuzzy socks. "I might feel better after I get some sleep. We have a layover in California. Gotta at least try and make it live up to the name right?" I smiled, giving him a gentle tickle. "Can I get like a Ginger ale and maybe a candy bar or uh…cheese and peanut butter crackers," he almost begged. Eating right before bed seemed to help too. I nodded, and got him the snacks from the vending machines. He ate it. We made out a little more, and when Greg fell asleep beside me, smiling huge, I didn't even mind that we hadn't consummated the married just yet. I knew it was soon in coming and Greg House was on the road to happiness. What else could I ask for?

XX

When the alarm clock went off the next morning, House was far from happy. He groaned, rolled on to his side, and tried to push me out of bed. "Come on sweetie," I instructed. "The sooner we get up, the sooner we can get to the airport, and the less we need to rush once we're there. And we are going to need a lot of extra time. I'm checking through a couple of bags, mostly extra medical supplies. But you already know that."

"I don't suppose we have time to do it, do we," he asked, yawning.

"No, but if you're awake enough for sex, you're awake enough to get that fine ass of yours out of bed." He smiled, pretended to punch me, and climbed off of the mattress. "We might have time for a quickie in the shower if you are feeling—and please forgive me for speaking this way—up for it."

"That's the worst pun I have ever heard," he taunted, peeling his pajamas off, and throwing them at me. "Pack these and meet me in the bathroom." Our marriage was officially consummated a little more than 14 hours after we became husbands. Then we got to the airport boarded a plane, and took off, all without incident. House slept through the entire first flight. Then, he picked at some greasy airport food, and finished almost half of the box of chocolates I bought from an LAX gift shop and forced him to swallow. "You do realize there's food in Hawaii, right," he asked. "Good food. Fresh food, food that doesn't make my stomach do back flips."

"_Touché_. Only problem is that we don't land in Hawaii for another eight hours, and it'll most likely be another two or three before we get out of the airport, rent a car, check into our hotel check, and finally go find ourselves some of that food. So, let me have one of those mint ones—what are you doing? You don't even like mint—oh yeah, real mature," I muttered as he licked my chocolate. "Unfortunately, that's not going to stop me from eating it," I explained, grabbing the candy, and gobbling it up. He smiled, touching my arm.

"I gotta go to the bathroom, wanna come with? It'll add to your girlish personality. They do that in _pairs_ you know."

"What's the matter, scared you can't reach the big boy potty on your own?" I think that couple at the table next to ours heard me, because the blond one gave us a dirty look. "And who exactly is going to watch our carry ons?"

"Have you ever been inside the cripple stall at one of these places? They're huge. Loads of room for you and me and my backpack and Dr. Jimmy's magical bag of medical wonders. Besides L.A. is famous for their bathrooms full of fags doing it." More angry glaring from our nearby tables. This time it was from the parents of a boy (approximately seven-years-old) who was most likely asking them what fags were. I grabbed my suitcase, slipped my arm around Greg's waist, as we walked to the restroom, pretending he needed to lean against me in order to walk. Once we got into the stall, we hung our bags over the hook on the door. I looked around, trying to decide what was the bigger threat, the possibility of getting caught (not that we were doing anything illegal or even-technically—wrong) or the millions of germs that might buffet on House's steroid-compromised immune system.

"This place is disgusting," I complained. "If you put your hand on the wall or the floor, or anything, it's like begging for a virus or a massive infection." His laser eyes bore into me, sadly. I sighed and stepped closer to the guy, ran hands through his hair, then pulled his face to mine, and kissing him deeply.

"I know," he said, sly-smiling, and popping a couple Vicodin. "That's why I'm not gonna touch anything except for you." I had a pretty good idea where he might be going with this.

"So _I _have to touch the wall?" Greg nodded, slipping his hands into the pockets of my jeans. "Oh, Greg—I—I can't." More neon sadness. _Damn he's good_. "I just wished I had some gloves with me." Luckily, or unfortunately (depending on who you ask) someone called our names over the loudspeaker at that exact moment, and we had to leave the bathroom. By the time we finished dealing with the gate agent, it was time to board the plane. "Don't worry, I have a really big fleece blanket in my bag of "medical wonders." After takeoff, you can lean your seat all the way back, curl up under the blanket, and wait for me to join you," I suggested, leaning close so I could blow in his ear, our bodies pressing against each other. House bucked ups hips a little, grinding into me. "I bet these seats are covered in almost as many bodily fluids as the bathroom walls. Your dream come true."

"I wanna have sex with my husband," he moaned, making the sad face at me. "Right now." _So do I, _I thought, squeezing his hand. As soon as we were in the air, I did exactly what I'd promised. We both crawled under the blanket, leaning down in his seat. Greg gently pulled my pants down, unzipped his, and slipped his cock inside of me. He rocked his hips back and forth, slamming into my body over and over, while one of his hands rubbed, squeezed, tugged, and rolled all across my throbbing manhood. We kissed. A lot. And after we both came, I put him back into his pants, and started moving to my own seat. "Wait, Jimmy," he said, grabbing my arm. "Didn't sleep well last night…stay close…'til I…fall…" And with one last yawn, he drifted off to dreamland, where he spent the majority of the flight.

The plane landed at 6:15 PM local time, but we had to wait for everyone else to deboard before the flight attendant brought this mini seat on wheels to us. They strapped him to it, and House was rolled off the plane, and onto the jet bridge, where a wheelchair was waiting. He didn't technically need the thing to get around, but I'd done some research and discovered that this particular airport was huge. He would have needed to walk close to a mile from our gate to the car rental place, which even in ideal conditions would take hours. I got the car, and drove to the hotel. We checked in and put our stuff in the room, without putting anything away. Then, we returned to the lobby where I asked the concierge where a good place to eat was, preferably somewhere nearby. He gave us a map of the area with three restaurants circled, and a few details on each.

"You wanna go to the romantic place, the fish place, or the sleazy looking bar and grill," I asked Greg, giving him a little nudge. "That last one might be more like what you're accustomed to." He laughed, trying to shove me back. House ended up picking the "romantic" spot, although it turned out to be not nearly as private as I had hoped. A girl with silky black hair kept coming by and refilling our water glasses, telling us what she would pick if she were eating here, and even sitting down at the table with us when she took our order. House thought she was coming on to one of us—he said me, most likely—but I insisted it was just friendliness. "Not that I blame you for misinterpreting. That shirt is quite _risqué_." I was called a fag yet again. "Takes one to know one." The woman was wearing a hand-tailored Hawaiian shirt, sleeveless and midriff bearing, with a plunging neckline.

"This place is like Hawaiian Hooters! That Chick is not wearing a bra—though I'm pretty sure those are implants. If you can get her to bounce up and down, or let you touch 'em we can know for sure," he giggled. My hand slid under the table, but my eyes stayed trained on his. I unbuttoned his jeans, sliding my palm around on the fabric, teasing him. "Jimmy," he whimpered. I pushed down on his hips.

"Relax, I'm not going to hurt you," I promised, taking a quick look around to make sure nobody could see, and slipped my fingers into his boxers. "She is a definite 10, though," I confessed, afterwards. Even post-coital, with eyes rolled back in his head, he had to argue.

"Nah—six and a half, seven tops," my husband corrected. I wiped my hand on my napkin, and—feeling like a total pervert—stuffed it in a hole in the padded booth.

"Yeah, well, you're a tough judge. I doubt you'd rank me a four." Our dinners arrived but House just smiled and tried to look down her shirt. "We've been married for less than 24 hours and you're already scoping out the competition?" House laughed and started to eat. "You even gonna _try _and reassure me, baby?" House wrapped his arms around my waist, and kissed me deeply.

"For the record," he insisted, "You are no four. I'd say, 'oh Jimmy I think you're a ten,' but you'd know it was a lie. There are no tens...Mmm, hey try some of this. It's really good." He feed me a forkful of some coconut shrimp thing.

"Yummy," I moaned, squeezing his hand. "By the way; _you're_ a seven and a half in my eyes Greg. If you were a tiny bit kinder and took better care of yourself, you know—shave, shower and brush your hair and teeth more regularly—you'd be an eight." House gave me the "who me"look and I smiled. "It's your eyes. You have the most amazingly beautiful eyes I have ever seen on anyone. Plus you've got a huge cock."

"Yours isn't as big but you really know how to use it and—I know I kind of tease you for it but I always liked your super smooth skin and pretty, girlie hair. Plus, the baby face. Girls and queers always love the baby face," he explained. "If I say nine will you still think I'm being patronizing?" I wanted to say no for him, but couldn't and he could tell. "Eight. Maybe 8.5 depending on how much primping you've done." We both laughed but seemed satisfied with each other's analyses, and shared some chocolate thing for dessert. Then, we went back to our hotel and did it. Twice.

"I think I'm turning into a bunny rabbit," I teased. He smiled blissfully and we fell asleep in each other's arms, on the first official night of our honeymoon

We spent the next two days screwing, lounging around on the beach, drinking, shopping (only a little and at my insistence), and eating. Each night, we'd curl up together and go to bed. He was actually sleeping pretty well, considering the climate change, all the flying, and the stress both of him being sick and all the planning and everything that led up to our wedding. He was doing great

…Or so I thought.

XX

On our fourth night in Honolulu, I woke up around 2:00 because I had to go to the bathroom, and realized my bed was empty. Greg was no longer beside me. Our suit was pretty big, so it wasn't as easy as looking across the room to find him. We had a bedroom, which was almost as big as the one in our apartment, a tiny kitchen with a stove, refrigerator, and microwave, a bathroom, and a combination living room/ dining room area with a giant plasma screen TV. I found my husband laying awake and watching a practically muted television in the last section of our "hotel room." He was rubbing his leg and repeating the words "damn it, move, stupid piece of shit," to himself over and over. "I can hear you crying from all the way over here, Wilson. Might as well do something."

"How long has this been going on," I asked, sitting beside him, wrapping my arms around his body, and holding him as tightly as I could. The guy made sad eyes at me once again. "Have you slept at all since we got married?"

"First two nights here it was fine. Before we left I was good too. Then, around 3:00 last night, I woke up and my knee was all stiff and aching. So, I got out of bed, paced, and stretched, and it went pretty away but I was still a little uncomfortable so I took some extra Vicodin—okay, four extra pills—and passed out. But it's not getting better now." I nodded and stood up to start pacing myself.

"And now you can't move your leg at all?" He shook his head. "The knee won't bend?" I thought he might actually cry. _Please, _I thought, _he can't be getting worse. Not now. This is our honeymoon!_

"I can move it a little bit but the more I bend or move, the more it hurts…aches. Maybe it's just the combo of the steroids and the humidity," he suggested but I could hear the doubt in his voice.

"I know you're trying to think positively, and I really hope that is what's wrong but it's hard for me to believe that you weren't sitting on the sofa, obsessing over the worst case scenarios." He shrugged. "Would it cheer you up a little if we played doctor?" A tiny nod. "Now I'm just checking, this is real 'doctor' not sexy doctor?" I think he knew I was just teasing but he still seemed upset by this joke, mad even. "When you're less freaked out we can go back to the fun games, right?"

"And people say _I _have a one track mind," he said, rubbing his head against my neck, the way I like. "Make me better. Then we can do it. Hopefully a _lot_ of it."

"That's exactly what I wanted to hear, Husband." He smiled weakly. "You might wanna swallow a couple pills, this might hurt," I suggested but Greg refused. "You've already had what you think is a few too many?" He shook his head and I believed him. "I've already—and I can't believe I'm saying this—completed more sexual acts than on any one of my other individual honeymoons, but I would like to have the total be higher than all of the previous three put together."

"You calm me down about my leg being all stiff and swollen feeling, maybe even cure whatever's wrong with it, or start me on the meds I'll need, if the MS is getting worse, and I'll do whatever you want." I almost questioned this but added. "I want all the same things you do. Just figure this out first. Please?" I had planned for every possible contingency, and brought meds we probably wouldn't need to treat them if something should pop up.

I nodded, smiled, kissed his head, stretched him out on his back, and went to work on my examination. I looked at his leg, checking for obvious injuries, or a rash, or anything else that even he could have overlooked. Then, I massaged every one of his muscles, working from toe to hip, and finally lifted his leg up, bending it at the knee, and tested his range of motion, the whole time, asking him questions. "Does it hurt," "Can you describe the pain," "Are you experiencing any other symptoms, related to the stiffness or not?" etc. He just lay there and watched.

"Well, I don't see anything…nothing which could be symptomatic of the MS progressing, or the steroids causing serious inflammation and swelling. I don't think this is like last time and since it's not as bad as it was the then, I'm guessing that the reason your joints are stiff is because it's so humid and you're on steroids. That even explains why you were able to walk it off last night but not now. It was much more hot and muggy today than yesterday. Agreed?" Greg nodded.

"So what do you prescribe, Dr. Feelgood," he taunted. I kissed his forehead again, and helped him sit up so we could cuddle. "Stop procrastinating," he grumbled.

"First I'm gonna take some of the food from our fridge and make you and me a little snack. Next, you are going to eat it, and you are going to have a glass of warm milk." House made a gagging sound. "It's not that bad, especially _with_ the extra Vicodin you're going to take now. Then, the two of us will to lie down in our bed, where I will hold you. If you sleep, I sleep. If not, I'm sure we can find something else to do." He relaxed a little in my arms. "I guess I'll have to cancel the 12 mile hike we have scheduled for this afternoon, huh?" He flashed me a weak smile. "We'll see where we are in a couple hours before we decide if we're leaving the room today, alright?" He nodded and I slid my arm around his back, letting the guy lean against me as we stood up together.

"It's probably what you said. I read about something like this on one of my message boards a while back." Even though he technically could bend his knee (a little) and walk, the guy was creeping along like a snail, and every movement of his leg seemed even more painful than usual.

"Do you wanna go back to the couch? It's far though… Can you stand here while I run and grab a chair?" Greg gave me a dirty look. "Okay, we'll get you to the kitchen," I said, and I couldn't help noticing how everything in him was invested in moving his body this tiny distance. 10 feet and it was killing him. _Eventually it's going to be like that all the time. _The thought flashed into my mind but I pushed it away to deal with later. He wasn't getting worse. Not right now. This was not the MS progressing and until it did, there was no reason for me to worry about what might or might not happen in the future.

When I finally got him sitting down, he held onto me, sort of crying softly. "I'm gonna get your pills before we eat or do anything else, okay?" He nodded, but refused to let me go. "How long have you been awake tonight? You can't walk. Like at all." House sat, silently rubbing his chin while I got his pills and then started on some sandwiches.

"It's been about an hour since I realized I wasn't gonna be able to get off the sofa unassisted. Before that, didn't seem so bad. I made it to the couch fine. So…" He took out five Vicodin, put two back, swallowed the remaining three, and stared at the bottle for a full minute, just contemplating. Then he grabbed a fourth pill, and popped it. "Can you heat up the sliced turkey in the microwave for a few seconds? Tastes really good that way." I did.

"And for future reference, husband of mine—your health and well being are far more important to me than anything else in the world, especially something as unimportant as where we are at any given moment. When I'm with you, I am happy. Even if I'm sitting on the bathroom floor holding you while you vomit. So, from now on, I don't care how insignificant it may seem; if you have a medical issue—if you so much as get constipated—tell me! As soon as you notice the problem." I inserted that bit about constipation in the vain hope that making a poop joke or two would cheer him up or calm him down a little. I knew he would recover faster if he didn't feel totally and completely freaked out.

"Do hard craps—tough craps—count as constipation? I mean is a tough crap a medical problem? Between the steroids, the pain meds, and my basically fiber-free diet, I'm the king of oversized, dried-up, lumps of shit." I fake laughed. "I didn't tell you, because I know it's nothing. My grandmother used to get aching, swollen joints in the summer sometimes. She could hardly move too—that was in her fingers and hands but it's pretty much the same basic idea."

"I hope your right," I whispered. I didn't have the energy to argue or worry that he might be wrong. "Okay, so I'm worried. I know you're scared but you have got to talk to me. We're married now. Part of marriage is sharing our problems and helping each other with them. Don't make that face I'm serious. You can rely on, trust, and lean on, or ask me for my love, my assistance, my anything. I know I can count on you when things get tough, when I'm hurt, scared, or upset. It's about the good stuff too, of course. When you are happy, share it with me; make me happy too. I'll do my best to do the same for you so we can feel good together, even when things aren't going so well." House made a loud farting noise. I grabbed his pill bottle and held it up over my head. "I'd like to see you sleep without this," I mocked.

"Fine. What you said wasn't completely moronic. Just warn me first when you need someone to lean on; so we don't topple over and get hurt." I kissed him softly. "If I complained about every little pain, every muscle spasm, bad dream, and all the other crap, there wouldn't be time for us to talk about anything else, let alone screw like rabbits or go see Gravedigger crush crap or do anything fun." He paused. "Maybe our being married means you have to trust me to admit when things are so horrible that I actually need help, as well as me trusting you to give it to me. The reason—I think—it hasn't worked for you before is because you think everything has to be perfect 100% of the time. You think you gotta fix all the bad stuff, so, the other person never ever hurts, but you forget that sometimes we all need a little of the bad, otherwise the good is pointless."

"If only we had been able to realize that without you having to have been struck down by this terrible disease." He rolled his eyes. " I love you, House, and I always will but…it's gonna be okay."

"I'm gonna, I—" he yawned. "I've been up for over 48 hours straight. Whether this is the MS progressing or not, the lack of sleep has got to be adding to whatever's going on," he explained. "If I don't get some sleep I'm not gonna be able to 'do it' for—I dunno. I'm too tired to calculate. Definitely no sex tomorrow unless I go to sleep now." I kissed his head.

"Oh no," I gasped in mock horror. "In that case I had better cart your ass off to bed posthaste. Think you can make it by foot or does my hubby need carrying?"

"I think I can walk—well limp, but um…I might need to _lean on you_ a little." The warm milk, the Vicodin (maybe the talking too) or both, did the trick. He literally fell asleep the moment his head hit the pillow. And he stayed like that for a good long time.


	5. Chapter 5

AN: basically chapter 4.2, I'm finishing up their honeymoon. The next chapter will take place during season 7 (minus the Huddy and Wilson/ Sam thing obviously) but it's going to be a little while.

Once sedated, House slept for fourteen hours. He woke up starving, in pain—mostly from his thigh—and terrified that his knee was no better than it had been 'last night.' In fact, he refused to even try to climb out of bed (despite a rather desperate need to use the bathroom) because he was so afraid the problem would be permanent. I tried telling him that I wouldn't sleep in a bed he'd used as a toilet but he just smiled and asked if I had thought to bring a bedpan along with my other medical supplies.

"Yes I did," I replied. He held out his arm. "I thought about it, but didn't actually pack one." Greg sighed. "If you want, I could try to carry you to but if I get a hernia or throw out my back, I will strangle you." Finally he allowed me to help him sit up. House slowly pulled himself to his feet, trying to keep all his weight on his good leg. Then, he stood, swaying for a moment. "It's alright; I've got you," I swore, wrapping my arm around his waist.

"I'm okay, Jimmy. Well, not…but I'm, you know. I'm a little stiff. And not in a good way," he joked, trying to act as though everything were normal. "But I can bend my knee unassisted now. Pain's not _too_ bad either." I nodded but let him lean on me anyway.

House complained of boredom when I gave him his morning meds, along with some French toast and scrambled eggs, I'd gotten from room service several hours earlier. But he ate, took the pills, and even let me massage his knee, along every other part of his body below the waist. As I moved down his back, Greg seemed to be calming down. By the time I reached his calf, he was all but melting into the mattress. "You feel relaxed yet?" I asked, sliding my hand down to his inner thigh, and letting the very tips of my fingers stroke my man's penis. He nodded "Is this okay?"

"Actually," his voice trailed of; so I started to pull away. "It's great!" He stiffened beneath my fingers. My own cock filled, straining against the front of my pants. "Did you get dressed to sit in bed and watch me sleep all day?" he mocked. My cheeks burned. "I guess you called Dr. Stern the second his office opened this morning?" I nodded, pressing a finger to my lips. "What I can't talk any—mmm—" His voice faded into a moan as I took hold of him, and lapped up a bit of pre-cum. I lifted my head, wrapping my fingers along the shaft. House pushed his hips up against my hand. I brought my lips back, wrapping them around as much of "little House" as I could. Greg panted. I sucked, watching his face.

I loved to see his face when he was smiling. House had never been truly happy, and the closest he got to happiness didn't come along very often. There were things I could do, places I could take him to get him to smile, and laugh and feel good. Sometimes if I made the guy feel really great while we were being intimate, this look would wash over his face. Pure joy. Seeing him with that expression was enough to make me cum. Twice. On this afternoon, he didn't get to enjoy things as much as I'd seen on other occasions but he was far happier than he'd been when I put him to bed, and he was still grinning long after.

"You are really good at calming me down," he confessed happily, "at loosening me up. But you almost never relax, not even after we do it. Not even when I'm give you a blowjob. And even if you manage to be somewhat calm while we're doing it, as soon as you're done, you go back to normal. So, I wanna try something, okay?" House looked like he wanted this more than anything in the world; so I agreed. To be honest, I've never considered myself all that tense. True, I had been extremely worried when we thought he might be getting sick, but now I felt fine.

"You can hear the waves from our room. And I know you're totally into that whole "picture the ocean" crap. So, this is like _that _in HD." I giggled, lying back, then closed my eyes, and took a few deep breaths, while concentrating on the ocean sounds and making a picture of the clear blue waters in my mind.

"That was nice," I said after a few minutes, and started to sit up, but Greg pressed me against the mattress. "What?" I opened my eyes and smiled up at him. "I feel very relaxed. Thank you"

"Just trust me, okay?" I nodded, and started picturing the water some more. I felt House's hands, warm and slightly wet, against my skin. He massaged the lotion, or possibly—since it was Greg—body wash into my neck, chest, and then shoulders. My muscles unclenched, and my mind began to drift off. I imagined my husband and I in the water, our naked bodies submerged to from the waist down, legs intertwined, arms wrapped around each other. We were kissing. As Greg's hand drifted down to my stomach, I started to feel like all the stuff I usually worry and obsess about weren't all that important. Yes, House would, eventually, get worse. The MS was going progress but worrying about what might happen would only stress both of us out more, and make even the smallest of problems seem astronomically worse. Plus, the more he worried, the more stressed his weakened immune system would become, and that could wreak havoc throughout his entire body.

House's hands were on my stomach by this point. I tried to concentrate on the ocean again, but the picture I now saw in my mind was different. The beach wasn't as clean but seemed more crowded than the one by our hotel but it still had a calming effect. House and I, and a small boy with reddish-brown hair and my husband's eyes. We were strolling barefoot along the shore, letting the water splash against our feet. Occasionally one of us would lean down, pick up a shell, and place it in the bucket the boy was carrying. The sky was that perfect shade of blue, and full of cotton candy clouds. For some reason this thought, this image helped me relax as well. I barely even registered the fact that House was finished with the rub down. "Wakey, wakey, Wilson," he called out, as he wrapped his fingers around my dick. I opened my eyes and looked up into those gorgeous baby-blues, and I smiled.

He rolled a calloused thumb over the head as he stroked. "There," he exclaimed. "That's the look. It's the face you make when you're completely relaxed." I giggled. "So what did you see?"

"Well, it would be kind of difficult to explain. Especially right now. Finish here, and then we'll discuss it. After that we can go out for dinner." I had barely gotten the words out as he slid my throbbing hardness into his mouth, and started to suck vigorously. "So is your knee completely better or are we going to be picking sand out of the wheelchair for the next year because we took it to the seashore once?" I asked after he was done.

He rubbed his thigh. "I know it hurts Baby, but it always hurts right?" A quick nod answered for him. "But you are better than you were last night?" He said, yes. "Let's go to the beach." Greg shrugged. "Wanna grab something to eat that isn't room service? Me too—I wouldn't mind if we walked—by which I mean I'll walk and you'll use the chair—around downtown, took a look the shops, and watched the perfectly bronzed/ muscled surfer boys run around shirtless and in tight shorts. Maybe we could sit somewhere, sipping insanely overpriced tropical drinks with more ice than alcohol, and maybe break in the digital camera your mom gave us as a wedding present." House giggled and crawled into my lap.

"We don't have to leave the room to use that camera," he whispered, breathily. The idea of taking dirty, sexy pictures of me and my husband (that only the two of us would ever see) seemed like one of the hottest things he'd ever suggested. However, I really wanted to get him up and out of the room. I wanted to be sure we got the full Hawaii experience.

"I promise, Baby; we will make some really, really, really hot porn, later tonight. We can play with the lighting, brush your hair, and maybe try out the black and white feature, all kinds of cool stuff." He nodded, and let me pick out some clothes for him to wear out, pair of jeans that gently squeezed his ass into the most sublime shape and a dull yellow Hawaiian (ish) shirt, with a Stones concert tee underneath. I wore beige shorts, and a plain blue t-shirt. We stayed close to our hotel that night, just to be safe. When we got back to the room, Greg was still a bit groggy and so he and I went to bed early.

The next morning, we got in our rental car and made the trek up the North Shore (and what a trek it was) where we checked out the scenery, shopped, and looked for a restaurant we'd read about in one of the guide books. It claimed this place was the best in all of Hawaii. Greg and I arrived just in time to eat dinner at a table on the patio near a cliff, overlooking the water into which the sun was melting beautifully, shooting out rays of pink, gold, orange, and purple as it dipped under the sea.

"I guess it's colorful. Sort of nice," Greg admitted, taking a swig of beer, and cracking open a lobster claw. "If you wanna snap some g-rated pictures to show my mom, and Cuddy, and people at work, or whoever…I'll pose with you for them." I had pulled over the car, and gotten out to take snapshots of my husband, the scenery, myself, House and I cuddling together/ hugging each other in front of floral or beach backgrounds. I pulled my chair up closer to him, and stroked his hair.

"You know what I think?" He responded with raised eyebrows and a furrowed forehead. "I am happy here, relaxed even. And so," I whispered, kissing him softly. "Are," Another kiss. "You." I gave him one more kiss. He shrugged, nuzzling my neck. "I think we should try and get jobs here. In Hawaii. Perhaps as the doctors in residence at some hotel or resort." He really seemed to like this idea, as a fantasy, as a game. "We can live in a hut on the beach, have picnics and go swimming everyday. We can find the best neurologist on the island, or maybe someplace else if we have to. It'll be fine and, as soon as you get used to the humidity, I think the warm weather and lack of rain or snow, plus the way that absolutely everything here has fruit and or fish in it, you will stay healthier for much longer, and be more comfortable in general."

He smiled, patting me on the shoulder and indulging me a little. He even said, "It's a nice idea," and took the camera, as I posed in on the edge of the balcony, my arms behind me, palms gripping the railing, and a snapshot grin on my face. Then I moved my hands to my hips, thrust out my scrawny chest, batted my eyelashes, and pouted. "That's a keeper," Greg cooed. I returned to the table, wrapped my arms around his shoulders, and the two of us began to slow dance to background music. "Wake me when the sappy part is over," my husband instructed, laying his head on my shoulder and pretending to snooze.

"It's never going to be over," I taunted. I'm pretty sure I saw a hint of a real smile before the eye rolling started. We finished our meal, took a few more pictures and drove back to our hotel.

XX

House and I spent the next few hours carefully posing in various levels of nudity and some provocative, some just "cute" as he called them. Although I managed to relax enough to enjoy being photographed, I did not start out that way. Greg, sensing my unease, kissed me on the cheek, and started grinding against my hips softly.

"How about I play "supermodel' first. You seem to love taking pictures of me anyway." He giggled as he removed his concert tee, and slid the unbuttoned, yellow shirt back over his naked torso, letting it hang open to reveal his thin, slightly tanned chest and stomach. Mostly shirtless, Greg sat on the floor and leaned against the wall. He slid his thumbs into the waistband of his jeans, looking up at me and smiling the tiniest bit.

"Very nice," I whispered, fixing his hair a little before capturing the image. My second picture was of House shirtless, and with his fly undone, the pieces of denim hanging open. His hands lay against the floor, and he was still leaning against the wall. The next few shot showed him, sliding his pants and boxers off. After that, he climbed—fully nude—onto the mattress lied down, and spread out. He continued to position his body, wrapping one fist around his hardening member, placing the other under his neck, giving me what he called a 'come hither' look. I raced over, turned off and put down the camera, and helped House feel a little more comfortable.

"We better go slow with _your _pictures, Baby,' he instructed "I'm gonna need about twenty minutes before I'll be ready to screw you properly. Otherwise, you end up finishing before I can start, or feeling "blue." I pouted. "Hold that pose." He snapped a close up of my face and pursed lips, which—according to him—looked very sexy.

"I was really excited by the idea of taking pictures of you but um…nobody is going to see these right?" I asked, my voice barely squeaking out. It wasn't that I didn't trust House but he has poor impulse control. He was the guy who found and then handed out copies of pornographic movie (staring me!) made by a friend from college to the entire hospital staff. Everyone snickered and pointed, and chanted, "Be not afraid," for months.

"The best part about you and me being married means that I am the only one who ever gets to see your naked body from now on. If you want we can even stick them in a password-protected file on your computer. A password you pick and don't tell me. You can put your porn in there too, if you don't want me to see it." I opened my mouth to tell him I didn't look at Internet porn. "Wuss," he mocked, smiling up at me, and reaching over to muss my hair. "You look cute with bed head."

Greg kissed me on the cheek and added, "Why don't you put on a nice shirt and tie? I have an idea. It'll help you calm down and give us some extra time." I did as he said. As soon as I put on the shirt, Greg popped open the first three buttons open, loosened my tie, and pushed it off to the side. "Stand by the doorway with your briefcase under your right arm, and use your left hand to make it look like your taking your tie off, after the end of the day." I did. "Lift the purse a little higher. Don't look at me that way. If you don't want me to tease you for something you do, stop doing it. And a bag that looks _that _much like a purse…you're asking for it." I let out a very small laugh.

He asked me to do the "male model pose," with my jacket slung over one shoulder. "It's dorky and a bit ostentatious but I think you can make it look sexy." I smiled weakly. It felt nice, having someone fawn over me again.

"I'm a little nervous—obviously. So, thank you for being nice enough not to push me," I told him, took a few steps forward, and kissed my husband on the mouth. I even let him take a stereotypical snapshot of us kissing, holding the camera in front of us.

"I love you, Wilson." He stared into space for a few moments. "Hey, Jimmy…mind if I _don't _take your last name? Mine may have belonged to an abusive bastard, because of whom I do secretly—sometimes—wish Hell actually does exist. I might even hope that John House is there right now, suffering/ paying for what he did to me and my mom and a lot of other people. But I've made a name for myself as Dr. Gregory House. Who's going to go see Dr. Wilson diagnostician?" He looked at me, and saw the slightly hurt expression I was hoping wouldn't show. "That wasn't a shot. Just—most people are too stupid to realize he and I are the same person."

"I think I'm ready to lose the shirt now, and these pants only look good on me when I've got one on. So, I guess they have to go too, huh?" House nodded and helped me get undressed. "I have no idea what to do."

"It's okay, Jimmy," he swore. "Let's lose the pants, and unbutton the shirt like this," he instructed, pulling the sides of it apart, slightly. "And put your hands on your hips, like your pulling your boxers off." I did. Greg dropped to one knee, tilting the camera upwards, still grinning.

"Now what," I asked, pressing on his shoulder, and pushing him onto both knees. He yanked my underpants down a little so that my ass and hips were hanging out. "Shirt off," Greg instructed. I did as he said, trying to keep smiling as the shutter clicked, capturing my every movement. As he surveyed my body, House rolled the tip of his tongue over his lips. I wanted to knock him over and jump the guy right there, but when he said, "I'm gonna hand the camera over to you now; just get what you can okay? We'll play around with the timer and stuff tomorrow," I realized he been feeling the same thing for at least the last few shots.

"I'm not going to get anything today; let's turn the camera off for a bit, okay?" House nodded, excitedly, as I put the Nikon down and climbed into bed with him.

The next few days were pretty much identical, and pretty much perfect. In the morning we got up between 9:30 and 10:00, ate amazing food, went to the beach, shopped, swam—well fooled around in the water and splashed about—made love, and did some touristy stuff along the way. His leg wasn't hurting any more (or any less) than it usually did, and his knee was basically fine by the time we started packing up our things to leave. Okay, _I_ packed; House sprawled out on the bed, and watched but he was fine. We came home without incident, and our lives went on as they had before Greg's knee started to bother him. In fact, the meds, and the newish doctor, combined with the antacid, and my "insanely overprotective, anal-retentive" care was enough to get us through the next year without a single incident.


End file.
